


When Fates Collide

by Rysler



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anal Fingering, Episode: s06e18 When Fates Collide, F/F, F/M, Juggling, M/M, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Philadelphia, Prison Rape (Mention), Team as Family, brolexa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 20:21:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6768610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rysler/pseuds/Rysler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Griffin is an acrobat with a broken heart when Titus recruits her from the circus to play "Clarke the Wanheda" in a musical. Alongside her is Lexa--the librarian of Polis--who plays the famous Commander due to her uncanny resemblance and her ability to research what really happened 100 years ago, when Lexa the Great united the thirteen clans and then died before her time. Her romance with the 'savage' Sky Commander is not only common knowledge but the stuff of legends, in true Alexander Romance style. Thirteen: The Musical, will debut just in time for Unity Day, as Titus and his unlikely actors try to stave off growing divisions among the clans among drought, hunger, and a growing desire for technological innovations, the likes of which wiped out humanity two hundred years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"That grain must be allocated. The people must eat." - The first line of "When Fates Collide," _Xena: Warrior Princess_  


Titus hadn’t been to a circus since he was a boy. He hadn’t missed it.

He had to dodge fire eaters, a deceptively docile bison, and throngs of screaming children who threw popcorn everywhere. He cursed himself for leaving Polis. Only thirty miles away, a mere day’s ride, was this mockery of civilization.

Titus frowned, squinting against the sun as he looked up. Silhouetted, a girl hung upside down on a high bar. Her blonde hair reached for the ground. The wind tousled it. Otherwise she wore tight, red leather. She regarded him with a similar frown. There was no trace of the gaudy blue griffin tattoo, the one that children in Polis could get stenciled onto their faces at festival time. It was probably on her back.

Griffin the famous Warrior. See her fighting tricks. There hadn’t been a war in a generation. Long enough to forget the carnage. Long enough to yearn for it again. 

“Griffin?” He called.

She swung back and forth, making his stomach churn. Just when he knew he would be witnessing a fall, she flung herself into the air, spinning twice, and landed on her feet, crouching like a cat. Sky people, indeed. Her expression was wary, yet wild.

He shook his head. The smell of caramel reached him from somewhere. But he kept his gaze on the girl.

“You’re from the Commander,” Griffin said.

The Commander might be the only figure who could compete against the mythology of the great griffin. He sighed.

“Yes. Have you considered my offer?”

He rather hoped not. Griffin stood before him, scowling and defiant, looking the spitting image of the legendary Wanheda. Was possibly related to her as well. That wasn’t why she was chosen, but word would get around. The Sky People had integrated with his people a hundred years ago, but their silly names made them distinctive. Mythological, possibly to be mocking, or an honest attempt to fit in. Either way, no one not fallen from the sky would be named Griffin.

He was kidding himself. More recently, the clans had been adopting fashionable Sky people names. Medusa had become a famous singer, and that was that. The Classical era was over.

He had to admit that Griffin, who could tumble through the air and had the manner of a giant cat, had been well-named. He wondered if it was fate. He believed in fate. 

“The money is tempting,” she said. “But I don’t know if I trust the Commander.”

He nodded. “Surely your life here is… While fun… A hard existence.”

She looked away. “Times are hard all over. Why is Polis any different?”

He pressed. “Polis is not different. You read the book I sent.”

“Yes. I can read.”

“And?”

She turned back to him, meeting his gaze squarely. “I don’t think it will work. Whatever happened on Unity Day a hundred years ago has no bearing on our problems today.”

He noticed she had a streak of pink in her hair. “Do you have political objections?” He sincerely hoped not. He had plans for her. 

“No.” She sighed. “I just don’t think it will work.”

“Come and see.” He wished he could deny her, she might prove difficult to mold, but her popularity and her skill would be the cornerstones of his production. Which might save the realm. 

“You did come all this way for me,” she said, as if reading his mind. 

“There are not many women of a certain age and a certain ability. Not within five hundred miles.”

Griffin grinned. “You were right. I could use a change of scenery.” A pall cast over her features, but she shook it off. “So let’s go, Titus.”

***

When they had settled into a tavern a few miles down the road for the night, she asked, over a mouthful of beer, who her opposite would be.

“Her name is Lexa.”

“I know. Everyone knows the great Commander Lexa, Leader of the Thirteen--”

“No, I mean, this girl’s name is Lexa, too. Lexa is playing...Lexa.”

“Did you pick us both just because of our names?” She gave him a wry glance.

Titus rolled his eyes.

“Maybe our looks, too. Heh, Titus?” She smirked. “So is ‘Lexa’ a famous actor? Never heard of her. And believe me, I’ve slept with a lot of actors.”

“She’s not exactly…”

***  
Lexa tried to stand still, balanced on a footstool in the middle of her library. Intruders had her pinned into leather pants. They were complaining about her hair, and she didn’t protest. She couldn’t breathe inside the outfit.

Surely there were dress shops in Polis. They hadn’t needed to come to the archives. But Titus had wanted to make things easier on her, she supposed. She had been interrupted checking the libretto for historical accuracy, and she longed to go back to her books and her ancient computer.

“You are quite striking,” the seamstress, Drusilla, said.

“I have never been striking in my life.” 

Small and slight, she had been spared by hardship by being the third child in a family of warriors and senators. She had eagerly gone into scholarship, and she excelled. She knew more about the clans than anyone alive, and now, somehow, she was being punished for doing her duty so well.

The portrait of Commander Lexa, drawn in charcoal and protected by glass, mocked her. Of course she saw the resemblance. But her namesake had been trained in combat since birth. No one would buy playacting. Titus said he was bringing in someone to teach her, but she held out no hopes.

Only her devotion to the clans kept her from kicking Drusilla in the head when a needle poked her thigh. Her downfall was agreeing with Titus. And being the keeper of the archives. She would allow no one else mastery of this production. Not while she lived and breathed the dust of history books.

“That face!” Titus said, entering the room. Behind him was a sullen woman about her age with wild blonde hair and a fierce, piercing look. Dressed all in red leather. And wearing it like she was born to, not stuffed into it by Drusilla. A real Warrior.

Lexa’s stomach flipped. Someone from the clans, not from Polis. 

“You’ve been practicing your scowling,” Titus said.

Lexa’s features softened. “I was thinking about something else.”

Titus took in her outfit with approval. 

So did the woman.

“This is Griffin,” Titus said. “Griffin, Lexa.”

Lexa stepped from the stool and strode toward Griffin with her hand out. “The Griffin? From the Waxing Circus?”

“The one and only.” Griffin’s tone was wry, but she clasped Lexa’s hand with warmth. “Titus says we’re in this together.”

“Yes. Heda and Wanheda. What do you know about the Kanenites?” Lexa asked.

“Tsk, Lexa. No politics now. We’ll have enough of that at dinner,” Titus said.

Lexa hadn’t missed Griffin’s eyes widening, and then her countenance settling into suspicion.

Lexa smiled, trying to apologize. Trying to impress this Griffin, if she were being honest. “We’re dining with one of the Commander’s ministers. He wants to start promoting us as soon as possible.”

“Unsettling,” Griffin said.

Titus looked pained.

Lexa nodded. “Yes, it is. But it’s a reality of life here in Polis.” This Warrior needed guidance. She was up to the task.

“Polis. The place I’ve been avoiding my whole life. Well, here I am. Where can I freshen up?”

“The library has unused rooms, near Lexa’s. We’ve put you there,” Titus said.

“Are you hoping we’ll get along?” Griffin asked.

Lexa’s stomach twitched again, but she soon saw that it was Titus’s tense reaction that Griffin was after. She relaxed, smiling at his frown. Then she turned to Griffin. “There’s running water.”

Griffin chuckled. “That’s all you had to say, Titus. I would have come sooner.”

“Well, you’re here now. Soon we can begin.”

“Rehearsing?” Griffin asked.

Titus shook his head. “Saving the world.”

“You know Wanheda means ‘Commander of Death’, right?” Griffin goaded him.

“Yes, she was a savage. But she was important,” Titus said.

“Yeah, I’ve only heard that my whole entire life.”

“Because of the resemblance?” Lexa asked.

Griffin frowned at her. “Because it’s a cool story. I mean, the real story of the Wanheda is a cool story. The script seemed almost like a different person, though.”

Titus nodded.

“Someone probably needs to fix that,” Griffin said. Still chiding. Still needling.

“You have no idea how right you are,” Lexa said.

Griffin winked.

Lexa felt her whole face melt into a bright smile.

Titus’s frown deepened.

***

Griffin had discovered their chambers had an adjoining interior door. She stood in it, watching as Lexa brushed long hair in front of a mirror. Occasionally Lexa glanced at Griffin in the mirror. Griffin had not stopped talking. Lexa found it enchanting.

“That was the most boring dinner I’ve ever been a part of. I had forgotten what those things were like. The circus meals are always entertaining. As you can imagine. Even when they’re about nothing. But this...this was truly about nothing!”

Lexa smiled at Griffin.

Griffin stopped talking and smiled back, mouth still open.

Lexa put her brush down. “Can I ask you a question? One that was not appropriate to ask earlier.” Nerves made her hands tingle. But sooner was better than later. So she told herself.

“Sure. Inappropriate questions are my favorite kind.”

“Do they really call you Griffin the Dove?”

“Not to my face.” Griffin’s joyful expression faltered.

Lexa stood, apologetic. She hated to see that expression on Griffin’s face, which had been so confident moments ago. The pain now there rebuked her.

“I didn’t mean to--”

Griffin’s expression softened. “It’s okay. You’d know sooner or later. I was born into the warrior clan. I’m a great hunter. A good shot with bow and arrow and rifle. But when it came to my first kill, in battle, if you can call it that, chasing down a boy with forbidden technology, trying to execute him with him whimpering at my feet... I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.”

Lexa nodded. That seemed no crime. Many times the great Wanheda had been counseled similarly by the Commander of the Thirteen. No. She shouldn’t be conflating them. The woman who stood in front of her was a stranger, not a story. 

“I was forgiven then. But it happened a second time, and I was banished. I haven’t spoken to my family in five years. I’ve just been using my warrior skills for parlor tricks. Being a clown. I deserve the name.” Griffin looked down. A pink tinted her cheeks. 

“I don’t--” Lexa started, but she faltered. What did she really know? Only that she was attracted to Griffin, for reasons that probably had nothing to do with Griffin’s prowess in battle. That was an alien thing to her. 

Griffin’s chewed on her lip, then squinted. “Hey, speaking of titles. You’re Lexa the Scholar.”

“What?” Heat rose in Lexa’s cheeks. She had never heard.

“Yeah, I thought you were a myth. Another Lexa, this time in..a library. Like this one. Something, something, Library of Alexandria. The great rebuilding. I guess they don’t talk about it much in the last few years, because of all the illegal presses. I mean, we--the circus--has an illegal press. But I guess that’s still you. Isn’t it?”

Was that admiration in Griffin’s gaze? 

“Lexa is a very common name,” Lexa protested.

“I’m pretty sure you aren’t a very common person.”

Lexa rubbed her burning cheek. “I think I could say the same about you.”

Griffin laughed. “Maybe so. I should get to sleep. We’ll see tomorrow if we can pull this off.”

Griffin ducked through the door and shut it behind her. Lexa went and touched the door, trying to sense or hear Griffin on the other side.

“We have to,” Lexa said. Then more firmly, she set her jaw. “We will.”


	2. Chapter 2

“The Skaikru are savages,” Lexa said. “Why should I trust you?” The words felt hot and short coming from her mouth, a voice she didn’t know she had, brought on by the leather pants, which were squeezing her. The sooner she learned how to be angry, the sooner she could get them off.

“Because…” Griffin said, faltering. She mimed her actions, her face a range of expressions. She was used to exaggeration as a clown, but this was over the top. If Lexa hadn’t been so flushed, she would have laughed.

“Because..” Griffin grabbed Lexa by the back of her head, and kissed her.

Lexa froze against Griffin’s lips, supple and parted, warm breath promising more, hand holding her promising stability and strength. 

“Stop!” Titus said.

Griffin stepped back, letting her go. Lexa managed not to stumble. She glanced around at the stage, a raised platform surrounded on three sides by walls, the fourth open to the street. They had no audience but she still felt exposed.

“Griffin, that was the worst kiss I’ve ever seen. And Lexa, you’re supposed to be surprised, but not so...that. You’re aware of Clarke’s passion for you. You initially reject it. Strongly. You do not stand there like a swooning teenager. After all, it’s her pursuit of love over war that finally brings peace.”

“I don’t think that’s how it went,” Lexa said.

“How what went?” Griffin asked.

“The transcripts of Lexa’s court show a defiant, unyielding Clarke--”

“We can’t portray Clarke as just another savage like the rest of her clan. No one will sympathize with her,” Titus said.

“Lovesick is better?” Lexa asked.

“It’s a love story! Are there no love stories in your archives?” Titus asked.

“I’ve read Romeo and Juliet,” Griffin offered.

“See?” Titus said. “Everyone dies and there’s peace. It’s exactly the same.”

Lexa sighed.

Griffin looked at her hands. “I’m sorry I’m not a good kisser. I don’t kiss a lot of girls.”

“I have.” Lexa offered. “I can teach you.”

Griffin grinned.

Titus threw up his hands. “I wanted to do a full read but I don’t think you’re ready. Take two days to yourselves and come up with something. Anything. I guess it was too much, to hope for a miracle. Looks aside, you’re nothing like our heroes. Learn to act.”

Griffin winked. She didn’t seem upset, though Titus’s words chafed Lexa. For no reason. What pride could she take in acting? Or the name of a warlord?

“Let me show you the tower,” Lexa said. “Where they stood. Where they slept. Maybe it will be inspiring.”

***

The old throne room was in disrepair. The throne, worn and cracked, sat in front of an open window. No screen or shutters. The room was dark and smelled of torches. Lexa knew where there were bloodstains on the floor. She didn’t point those out to Griffin. Years ago the ruling council had moved downstairs, where there was heat in the winter and cool in the summer. It made them more accessible to the people. More approachable. Lexa supposed it was progress, but she liked to imagine what had gone on here in the past. What her namesake and her rival, the Commander of Death, had really been like. 

“I’m sorry,” Griffin said. “It’s just an old room.” Her nose ran from the dust. She sniffed, then walked to the window.

“Don’t get too close,” Lexa admonished.

“You forget who you’re talking to,” Griffin said, grinning. She peered down. “Did Commander Lexa really throw people from here?”

“Yes.”

“And she looked like you? So… Small?”

“I’m sure I was chosen for exaggeration. But you know the legends.”

“I do know the legends,” Griffin said. She walked back in front of the throne. “And I think you’re wrong.”

“About what?”

“The people don’t want a play--”

“Musical.”

“The people don’t want a ‘musical’...”

“They’re not the same thing,” Lexa persisted.

“Fine. But they want to hear the legends. Not the facts. They want a torrid romance. They want a big fight scene. They want murder and redemption, not boring...court transcripts or whatever. Clarke and Lexa have to be heroes, and they have to be likable. I agree with Titus.”

Lexa nodded slowly. 

“Can we see where they slept?” Griffin asked.

“No. The current commander lives there.”

“In the same bed?”

Lexa shook her head. 

“Because that would be weird. And yet they chose you because you look like that painting.”

“Drawing,” Lexa said.

Griffin gazed at the ceiling. “They picked me because I can fight and jump. But I’m not supposed to fight. I have to play someone… Elegant.”

“You don’t know?”

“Know what?” Griffin looked at her.

“Follow me.” Lexa said. 

They went back to the library, past the portrait of the commander, to a side room filled with photographs. Lexa found the one she wanted on top. She’d shown it to Titus before.

“That’s me,” Griffin said.

“It’s Clarke, the Wanheda. Taken with the Heda. Someone tried to assassinate them together.”

“Who had cameras back then?”

“The Mountain Men.”

Griffin’s hand trembled as she put the photograph down. “I didn’t know.”

Lexa was amused. “But you’re Sky People.”

“I mean, my great great grandmother was, or something. But no one keeps track of that stuff.”

“Yes, they do.”

“That’s silly. I’m no different than you.”

“You were named after a mythological being.”

“And you weren’t?” Griffin asked.

Lexa’s hand froze. She shook herself. “Let’s go. There’s more to see.”

***

Griffin stood inside the circle traced in the dust. They were in front of the stage, closer to the street. People moved past, glancing in their direction, but not caring. She’d wrapped her hands with rags, and Lexa’s too. Lexa held a short staff.

“Now, attack me,” Griffin said.

“I don’t think I can,” Lexa said.

“Just run at me. Try to hit me as hard as you can with the staff.”

“You’re supposed to be training me, Griff. I think this is dangerous.”

“I’m the trainer. Come on. Stunts are a big part of the theatrics, right? Hit me!”

Lexa took a few faltering steps forward, and then swung her staff at Griffin’s shoulder. Her arm protested the attempt. She lowered the staff, panting. 

Griffin had ducked. “See?”

Lexa swung from the other direction, aiming lower. Griffin leaned back out of the way. 

“Pretend I’m a pinata,” Griffin said.

Lexa ran at her, striking and missing again. They were in close quarters, there was nowhere to swing. Griffin tapped Lexa’s nose. “Rookie mistake.” 

Lexa huffed and pushed Griffin in the chest.

“Better. Now go back to your mark and come at me again.”

“It’s not really fun if you keep ducking.”

“Oh, now you want to hit me,” Griffin said.

Lexa grinned. “You’re frustrating.” She charged Griffin.

“Yeah?”

“Maddening.”

Lexa twirled and aimed for Griffin’s knee. Griffin leapt over the staff.

“Argh.”

“Fine.” 

When Lexa swung again, Griffin held up her bracer-encased forearm. The staff landed with a loud crack. Lexa threw it to the ground. 

“I’m sorry,” Lexa said. “That sounded horrible. Are you all right?”

Griffin waved her hand. “Fine. See? You can hit me as hard as you want, and I’ll be just fine.”

Lexa glanced at the staff. “I don’t want to try again.”

“Okay. Tomorrow.” Griffin folded her arms, smirking.

“Have you memorized your lines?”

“Only the ones we’re doing this week. Blah, blah, ‘Love is a weakness,’ blah.”

Lexa covered her mouth, grinning.

“You?”

Lexa shrugged one shoulder. “Sure.”

Griffin went to the stands at the edge of the circle and picked up a canteen. She drank thirstily.

Lexa lingered, glancing again at the staff, murmuring to herself. “I swear fealty to you, Clarke kom Skaikru…”

“What?”

Lexa straightened. “Nothing. Just something from Lexa’s diaries that didn’t make it in.” She caught the canteen when Griffin threw it. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Griffin settled onto the bench. “Sure, why not.”

“Why are you here? The way you wrestle… You belong outside. Surely the circus was more fun than this.”

“Yeah. No offense, but this is…”

“Branwada?” Lexa asked.

“Something like that.” 

Griffin took the canteen back, drank, and then settled, not looking at Lexa. The afternoon shadows were reaching from the buildings, though it was still warm in the sunlight. 

“I had a lover. For a while. At the circus. Bellamy Blake.” Griffin laughed to herself. “If you think I’m a daredevil, you should have seen him. He was a tightrope walker. That shit is impossible.”

“Did he… fall?”

Griffin turned back to Lexa, her voice sober. “Sometimes I wish. That would have been easier. A fall, or a tent fire, or just… leaving me for someone. I always teased him about Lincoln.” At Lexa’s quizzical expression, Griffin said, “Our strongman. East-kru. Not important. But no. Bellamy just… vanished. Left his horse, left his books, left me. And his sister. His very angry sister.”

“Just disappeared?”

“People disappear from the circus all the time. And he…” Griffin hesitated, looking down at her hands. “He was a Kananite, anyway. He thought he was, at least. He was always saying we could do more.”

“Kananite,” Lexa breathed.

‘I know that I have a Skai-Trikru name, but it’s just a name, you know? But Bellamy kom Skai? He walked in the air. He didn’t think he could fall.”

“There are some who believe the Sky People caused the Kananites,” Lexa said.

Griffin nodded. She twisted her hands, examining her nails.

“But not me,” Lexa said.

Griffin looked up. “Not you?”

Lexa smiled. “No. People shouldn’t care what went on a hundred years ago.”

“You know we’re in this play, right?”

“Musical. That’s not what I mean. We should be proud of who we are. But things were too different back then. You can’t compare.”

“A hundred years ago, there were thirteen clans,” Griffin mused.

“And two hundred years ago, there were seven billion people on Earth.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s the truth.”

“If you say so. I’ll just memorize my lines. I won’t learn them.”

“Probably best, with all the lies and half-truths that are in it.”

Griffin shaded her eyes and peered at Lexa. “It’s true. I really don’t care.”

“Perfect. Now. No more short staff. Come home and eat with us tonight,” said Lexa.

Griffin got to her feet. “No, it’s all right. The kitchen under the library suits me.”

“I’ve eaten there. It is definitely not as good as what we have, Griffin.”

“I’m from the circus. I have an iron stomach.” Griffin patted her stomach and winked.

“Okay.” Lexa pressed Griffin’s arm, then turned to go. “But you’ll give in eventually.”

“I know,” Griffin said. “But not tonight.”

Lexa gave her one last smile, then left the circle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you gotta pee, you gotta pee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early in honor of #shoot #sex day. Congratulations, ladies. Also, I wrote the ending of this little circus fic today. We're all relieved about that, right?

“God is Change” - Octavia Butler

Chapter Three

Griffin was juggling. Lexa was seated on the dais, a rather precarious set-up for a throne, which moved on wheels on and off the stage, and Griffin stood before her tossing three balls up into the air.

“Tell me why I should not kill you now,” Lexa said.

Griffin frowned. “That’s not the line.” She kept juggling.

“You’re distracting.”

“I’m trying to concentrate. Just say the line.”

“Maybe life should be about more than survival, Clarke.”

“Easy of you to say, sitting on your throne in your glorious gold city.”

“That’s not the line either.”

Griffin grabbed a ball and kept juggling two in her other hand. “My home, my people, they fell from the sky and burned. All I have left is survival.”

“We saw. It was an omen.”

Griffin caught the other two balls. “An omen of what?”

“Of change. God is change.”

“I guess I could really use a change right now,” Griffin said.

They shared a smile.

Lexa tilted her head. “You do know your lines. Even though your methods of rehearsal are unorthodox.”

“Yes, I can read and repeat things, Lexa.”

Lexa’s cheeks colored. “I did not mean it that way. I meant, I have been living and breathing these words for many years. It is… Disconcerting… To hear them fall from another’s lips. Disconcerting, and yet I cannot help but feel a shift. A change. Like they’re waking from their tomb and becoming alive in the world.”

Griffin nodded. “I know. It’s just that I’m a person of action. Warriors don’t have to think. And the circus was no brainy pursuit. I’m used to… Actioning.” She looked out at the empty rows of benches. 

“Acting,” Lexa corrected.

“I guess so. I just expected, with you being the Commander of the Thirteen and I being Clarke the Wanheda, we’d have…An audience. I’m used to having an audience.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Lexa tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile.

Griffin shook her head. “Shouldn’t Lexa have an adoring audience around her at all times?”

“I don’t think the war council was adoring.”

“No. But I think a commander’s life should be less… Boring. More filled with greatness.”

“That’s why Titus brought you here. To instill greatness.”

Griffin resumed juggling. “Greatness doesn’t exist without someone to see it.”

“Griff, is your ego offended?” Lexa slouched in her throne, and laughed.

“A little. People used to tell me I was great every day. Now I can barely say my lines.”

“Fine, Griffin. You’re great.”

Griffin pursed her lips and smiled thinly at Lexa. “It shouldn’t matter. But it does, coming from you. I want this to be good for you.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows, the amusement still on her face.

“The show, pervert.”

Lexa grinned. “You will not fail me.”

“Nope.” Griffin turned away from her, and tossed the balls one by one into a dust-bin by the stage edge. “I won’t fail again.”

***

“Got a new job, fell in love” - Person of Interest

Lexa knocked on their shared bathroom door. “Griffin, how much longer are you going to be?”

“Another five minutes. Just come on in,” Griffin shouted over the shower. “If you gotta pee, you gotta pee.”

“How unseemly,” Lexa said, coming in. She did seriously have to pee. 

The room was fogged from the shower’s heat. The mirrors showed only hazy film. Lexa lifted her nightgown and quickly did her business, before the shower sound stopped covering it up. 

She was washing her hands when the shower water stopped. Griffin stepped out, her back to Lexa, wrapping a towel around her front. It covered her breasts but not her back, and left her tattoo exposed.

“Wow,” Lexa said.

“It’s just because I train so hard outside, it’s nothing--”

“I mean your tattoo. Can I see it up close?”

“Oh. Sure.” 

Griffin stood patiently with her back to Lexa. Lexa approached the gryphon, a swath of sky blue--for the Skaikru, maybe--with a sharp beak and talons and a lion’s strong, graceful body. The wings stretched over Griffin’s shoulder blades. One of the talons had a globe on it, and on the globe, the number 13.

Lexa traced the wings and the globe without touching. “The 13th tribe,” she said.

“It’s just an unlucky number,” Griffin said.

“It’s beautiful.”

“I had it done when I left my family. To remind me of who I was. Or maybe, to tell me. I didn’t really know.”

Lexa made a sound, involuntarily, something like sympathy. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

Griffin turned around and met her gaze. “I still don’t know,” she said.

“I used to be so confident. Maybe like you when you were still young. But it didn’t get me anywhere.”

“Where did you want to get?” Griffin searched her face.

“Somewhere where the chaos of the outside world matched the calmness of the library, I suppose.”

“Maybe someday,” Griffin said.

“Maybe someday.” Lexa squeezed Griffin’s wrist. “Thanks for showing me. I should get some rest.”

Griffin nodded.

Lexa gave a little laugh. “I’m still sore from swordplay.”

“I promise in a few days it won’t hurt anymore.”

Lexa walked to the doorway. “If you promise.”

Griffin was grinning when Lexa closed the door. Lexa’s heart was pounding in her chest, but she was smiling. For once she had no idea what was going to happen tomorrow, but it would probably involve Griffin, and therefore be more exciting than she could picture.

It would be good if she got any rest at all. 

***

"I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light." - Babylon 5

Lexa stood in the center of a circle. Twelve robed and hooded figures surrounded her, all in grey. Old and young, man and woman, they circled her, chanting. Six chanted “peace,” six chanted, “war.”

The circling and the tones made Lexa nauseous. She wrung her hands, tried not to circle to face them head-on, but failed, twisting and making herself sicker. 

“Help me,” she said, reciting the words on the libretto. Then she crouched over and covered her ears. “Help me.” The words couldn’t be heard over the chants, but it was somehow important to the character and the show that she say them.

Her vision spun. She straightened up carefully. Her hands on her thighs pushed her, elevated her, until she shouted above the din.

“Stop!”

The circling stopped. Cloaks waved. Silence reigned.

Sweat poured down Lexa’s face. She wiped her brow, and then faced downstage. Between two figures, the audience would be able to see her.

“I was chosen by the flame. I am the Commander. I have the strength and wisdom to decide this matter, at your hands.”

“Yes, Heda,” the twelve voices recited.

“I choose peace,” she said.

“Yes, Heda,” six voices answered.

The six that hadn’t spoken turned their backs on her.

“I choose Clarke,” she said, more quietly. 

A single shrouded figure moved to her side, from upstage. “You will die,” it said.

Lexa stared, strong and bold, out at the imaginary audience. “I choose Death.”

“Wanheda,” the twelve voices chanted again. “Wanheda. Wanheda.”

Lexa drew her sword from its sheath and threw it to the ground. It clattered before stilling. The blade was clean, and treated to shine in light. 

The figure beside her spoke again. “You will die. But not by the Wanheda’s hand.” 

“That’s all I need to know.”

Lexa leapt from the stage, as Griffin had taught her, not looking down, and strode between the rows of seats to the back. She was defenseless.

Onstage, the figures scattered. All that remained was the sword.

Another figure entered, in Trikru armor, but no facepaint. He picked up the sword, stood for a moment--three seconds, according to direction--and then left the stage.

Titus came to Lexa’s side. “Good.”

“I hate that,” Lexa said.

“It is necessary.”

“And there weren’t twelve past commanders. Not in Lexa’s time.”

“It doesn’t matter. Twelve ground clans. Twelve sky clans. Twelve Gods.”

The sweat was growing cold. Lexa wrapped her arms around herself. “So, is this Lexa’s heroic story, or is she just some pawn in a long line of pawns, with civilization lurching forward, purposeless?”

“You know too much about the flame. That’s a story we can never tell.” Titus gave her a grim smile, said nothing, and moved away. She watched him. He greeted the twelve, who had pushed back their hoods and were smiling and laughing.

The sword-bearer came up to her. 

“Diamond,” she said.

He nodded, handing her the sword.

She sheathed it. The nausea had subsided, but her stomach felt hollow. She hugged herself again, tighter.

“You’re the historian, too, right?” he asked. 

“Yes.”

“Tell me frank. Did some Trikru really betray Lexa? Or is that just a story we made up so that the savages could save themselves from being wiped out?” He asked.

Lexa imagined Griffin before her, pushing the sword through her gut. Griffin’s eyes, dancing with fire. Griffin’s eyes, like Nia’s. 

“It’s true. The ‘kru remained loyal to the wanheda, after. Wanheda is death and rebirth. Clarke ushered in a new age.”

God is change.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Diamond said. 

“It’s just life. And Death,” Lexa said.

Titus waved at them. “Let’s do it again.”

Lexa waved her assent, and then moved to the side of the stage, in the grass, and threw up.


	4. Chapter 4

“Its rider was given a mighty sword and the authority to take peace from the earth. And there was war and slaughter everywhere.” - Revelation 6:4

Griffin practiced her love scene with Mars, who played Finn. Mars was a year younger than her, but seemed still like a child. His fresh face was to be covered in war-paint, his black skin chosen particularly to show off white markings.

That or he was really the Commander’s godson, like people whispered.

Either way, he was a terrible kisser, and had groped Griffin’s breast twice right there on the stage, in full view of Titus, but thankfully, no one else.

He teased her when she stomped his foot. “Are you truly like Lexa the Great? Eyes for women only?”

“In theory I like anyone. Everyone’s parts are interesting. No matter how small, isn’t that the saying?”

Mars brightened.

“In practice, I’m choosy.” 

Titus smirked. 

Mars reddened. “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re named for the God of War and you’re playing War itself in a play about a war.”

“Well your name is Griffin.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Mars scowled and stomped off the stage.

“The show is about peace, Griffin,” Titus said, coming to her side.

“Did you really pick us from a phone book, Titus?”

“Do you know what a phone book is?”

Griffin hesitated. “It’s a list of inhabitants of a village in alphabetical order.”

Titus sighed. “I have something to show you.”

“Is it a literal phone book?”

“Kind of.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

He led her across the city and back to the archives, into Lexa’s realm. She was absent and Griffin felt awkward being there without her. Something was off. Something was wrong. She passed the portrait of Lexa and the pistol on its velvet pedestal and a heavy book called “Wallace Family Tree.”

Then he led her into the giftschrank, which smelled of dust and leather and something else.

“What’s that smell?”

“Silver. To develop photographs with. We have millions of rolls of film.”

Something cold washed through Griffin. “Is this the only place among the clans that can create photographs?”

“That is my belief,” said Titus.

Griffin didn’t want to go any further, but Titus opened a steel door and took her into a lead-lined vault and forced her to see.

She said, slowly, “Printing presses. The Kananites use real photographic reproductions. To show what’s possible with technology. No painting can look that realistic.”

She thought of the portrait of Lexa hanging outside.

“Exactly.” 

“And this is right under Lexa’s nose?”

Titus frowned at her.

Griffin squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, the presses were still there, and near them, a stack of pamphlets. “These are Lexa’s. Why are you showing me this?”

“This is why you are here.”

“To betray Lexa? You kind of led me down the wrong path there...”

Titus shook his head. “To protect her.”

“What? How? How do you know I won’t march to the tower and turn her in? It would be the first hanging in five years, right?”

“I do not know you won’t do that,” Titus said. “I merely hope you will not.”

“I don’t care about politics.”

“I don’t suppose that you do.”

“And I barely know her.”

“She is worth knowing. That’s why I am showing you this. What’s at stake. What her life means for Polis. She’s the smartest woman alive. She knows things no one else knows. Because she’s the only one who’s been allowed to study our history. To preserve the records. But there’s so much more than just the records, Griffin. Civilizations are stored within these walls. One day, someone will want to kill her for what’s in her head. But you can help her.”

“Why not just ask me to train her? Why the play? You have twenty actors just to get me?”

Titus smiled. “You’re right. You’re not that important. The musical… That’s where Lexa and I differ. I still believe it’s possible to avert a war. To remind people of what it means to be a part of this world. E pluribus, unam. Art is powerful. But Lexa thinks it’s too late.”

“Does she know I’m here?”

“No. Don’t talk to her about it. Don’t tell anyone. It’s too dangerous.”

Griffin looked around the room and sighed. “Then I don’t know--”

“If you know the whole truth, Dove, you will have all the weapons you need. To go into this blind of Lexa’s purpose would make you less effective as a protector.”

“I think there are a lot of things that make me ineffective as a protector.”

Titus’s smile grew. “And those are reasons I chose you.”

“Are you a madman?”

“Perhaps. But I am on Lexa’s side. And now, so are you.”

“And if I’m not? You’ll kill me?”

“I won’t. But sooner or later, someone will come for. You both need to be ready.”

Griffin couldn’t shake off her shivers. “You brought me here, you put me on a stage, you called me ‘Wanheda.’ Fuck you.”

Titus gestured toward the open door. “Shall we return to work?” he asked.

Griffin scowled. “That’s why you cast a boy named ‘Mars.’ Phone book. Subterfuge. Lexa’s right. You suck as a show runner.”

Titus said nothing, but kept his hand out.

Griffin stalked through the door. This was too much to take in. This was too much to care about. Her family had tried to turn her into a warrior. She had failed them. Bellamy had tried--she had failed him, too. So she would fail Lexa. 

Tears stung her eyes as she climbed the ladder back to the archives. She didn’t look back as Titus followed.

He’d chosen poorly. He’d chosen her because of her name. He didn’t know any better. 

But he was right about one thing. She wouldn’t turn Lexa in. 

Her chest clenched. She put her hand over it. With Titus watching, she found the portrait of the Lexa. “What’s happening to the world, Titus?”

“Change comes.”

“Can’t we stop it?”

“No.”

***

“To your Highness justly belongs the Honour of dying for the people, and it cannot choose but be unspeakable consolation to you in the last moments of your life to consider with how much benefit to the world you are like to leave it.” - Killing No Murder, anonymous pamphlet, 1657

After two days of combat practice and another day of kissing Mars, Griffin finally agreed to eat at Lexa’s family home. Lexa observed her with amused interest.

Her home was on the third floor of an ancient brick building, sturdy and steel-reinforced. The floor held five bedrooms, a massive kitchen with gas and running water, and a view of the bay. She had only a faint idea of where Griffin had grown up, but she expected her home to be superior by comparison, and it was comforting. 

Griffin had dressed not in leather, but the Polis fashion of tight shirts and loose pants. A fashion for peace--no place to strap a weapon. People wore it at their peril. Muggings were on the rise. The economy faltered. The drought drove prices high. 

Griffin had been demure to Lexa’s mother, the matriarch of their family, but had walked on her hands for Lexa’s younger brothers. She declared herself a fan of fish from the bay, fresh-caught, barely seared. Then she joined Lexa for apple brandy on the veranda.

Lexa could smell the water. Clean and black in the moonlight. In old pictures, from Before, it had been brownish green. People had swum in it then, and swam in it now.

“We only have beer at the circus, and it’s cut with water,” Griffin said.

“Don’t drink too much, then.”

“Come on, Scholar. You have to live a little.”

“It’s true. I am an actor now. There are certain expectations.”

“Debauchery,” Griffin agreed. 

“I take it you are well-versed,” Lexa said.

“The second oldest profession, right? Storytelling.”

“They weren’t stories back then. They were legends.”

“Let me tell you about a real legend, Scholar…”

Lexa listened to another tale from the circus, about surprise nudity in a farming town far to the west. Lexa was more interested in the bison and wild horses than the antics, but she was patient with Griffin. It was so easy to be at her side, and absorb her energy. 

The story closed, and feeling jovial, and convenial, Lexa pressed for intimacy with her co-star. She wanted more of Griffin.

Griffin didn’t seem to notice her flushed face. 

“So you left the circus because of your… guy-friend…” Lexa tried not to meet Griffin’s dancing eyes.

“After he left there was no reason to stay. So I left the circus because Titus offered me a chance to impact the world. Do something good. The circus was all about being outcast. Because when I was being trained to be a warrior, that was good, right? Helping people. Protecting people. Peacekeeping. Hog Island is strong and there is security. And I lost that and got sent to do party tricks. But this… Maybe this will be better. Maybe my family will see me in it.” Griffin said it all without making eye-contact with Lexa.

“I hope so,” Lexa mused.

“You don’t believe in it,” Griffin said, searching her face.

The gaze made her uncomfortable. “I believe in what we’re doing. I do, Griff. Maybe not the way we’re doing it, but why.”

Griffin’s shoulders relaxed. She nodded.

Lexa placed her hand over Griffin’s on the bannister. “We’re in this together.”

Griffin turned her hand over and intertwined their fingers. “We are.”

 

“Maybe we will do something good.”

“Maybe we already have.” Griffin smiled.

Lexa squeezed her hand and smiled back. They watched the sky grow dark as the sun set behind them.

***

Griffin stared at the ceiling. It had water stains and dark webs in the corners. She sensed bats in the walls. The bed sank beneath her. Some sort of foam. A charcoal drawing of a horse hung just outside her peripheral vision. Black strokes for galloping legs and wide eyes. Then yellow and orange stains, like the horse had wings of fire. 

On the ceiling her short life played out. Training was her earliest memory. How to shoot a bow and arrow. How to make bullets. How to grind powder. How to start a fire. She and her brothers would have contests with wet wood and homemade paper.

Bellamy’s sister, Octavia, who could speak every known language, alive or dead, taught her how to fire-eat. She’d probably love the library. She’d loved Griffin, once, as sisters. Until she accused Griffin of driving Bellamy away, by questioning the kind of man he was. 

Octavia hadn’t grown up in a warrior caste. She didn’t understand security. In fact, she’d be the one most likely to burn the world down. When she, fury become ice, became the voice of reason, Griffin knew she had to go.

She had let Titus lead her straight into Hell. 

Maybe Griffin was wrong to feel her punishment was deserved. That’s what Octavia would say. And Lexa? Lexa had only questioned what brought her here. She didn’t pass judgment on why. 

But what would a scholar and a printer know about real war? How many dead bodies had Lexa seen? Griffin shook her head and threw back the fur covering her, exposing herself to the warm, still air in the room. Lexa was from a family of warriors, too. They had that in common.

Griffin was drawn to her, heda or not. Traitor or not. She was strikingly beautiful in a way Griffin wasn’t used to. No painted lady, like the circus. No warpaint. That was enough to get her attention, to heat her blood. 

She could talk to Lexa for hours. She felt understood, for the first time in her life. Lexa didn’t need her to be something she wasn’t.

She wondered about Lexa’s secrets.

She rolled over and closed her eyes, debating which of the Clarke and Lexa stories was her favorite. As a child, it had been them fighting the great monster. That’s when they learned they would fight for each other and save each other. The rock--the carcass of a mighty elephant--that their friendship was built on.

The story brought a smile to her lips, and the ghost of Clarke to her dreams.

***

The steel collar was uncomfortable. They’d put cotton backing in to protect her neck, but the edges still bit her skin. Griffin didn’t have to playact frustration on the stage today. Lexa stood at her side, facing off against the chorus.

“Make her kneel!” They shouted.

“Cut off her head!”

Lexa remained calm. A deep pool of water, with unknown demons in the currents at great depths. Placid on the surface. Tempting.

“When Heda kom Skaikru kneels before me, it will be by choice. And all her nation will kneel with her.”

“Killer!” They shouted. Or “Kill her.” Griffin wasn't sure.

“She is our hostage. I have put the great leader in chains.” Lexa turned to Griffin, cupping her cheek.

Griffin wrenched her head free and spit at Lexa.

Lexa didn’t flinch. They’d practiced that enough. Lexa smiled. “You will kneel and acknowledge me as Commander.”

Griffin shook her head. She wasn’t allowed to speak. This scene was about her submission.

Lexa addressed the chorus. “I have conquered the water. I have conquered the sky. Next I will conquer the Mountain!”

Griffin’s least favorite story. She kept her expression blank as she was lead off stage.

“Excellent!” Titus said. “Break for lunch.”

Griffin yanked her collar off. “Sasia’s food cart?”

“You read my mind,” Lexa said.

When they sat together on a bench, eating goat’s meat soaked in milk and wrapped in bread, Griffin asked Lexa her favorite story.

“I haven’t told you yet?” Lexa said. “Let’s see…”

“You even have to think about it? You’re an expert.”

Lexa avoided her gaze. “My favorites are all pretty bloody. Finn the Terrible. The Doublecross at the Mountain. But I guess my favorite of all is the Last Mountain Man. It’s about life, not death.”

“That one is so boring.” Griffin sighed. “Just a speech. And believe me I’ve heard it at least once a year.”

“It’s beautiful. Since it was written into the records, I think it’s the purest record we have of who Clarke and Lexa really were.” She hesitated. “Politically, at least.”

Griffin mimed yawning and stretching. Then she smirked at Lexa. “The spitting shows up in a lot of records, too.”

“It must have been quite something. I know your favorite story is fighting the Minatour,” Lexa said.

Griffin scoffed. “Yup. It totally is. I don’t deny it.”

Lexa nodded. 

“What’s the one about fealty?” Griffin asked.

“What?” 

“You’re always mumbling some line I haven’t heard yet in the musical. Something about ‘fealty.’ What does that even mean? Octavia would know, but she’s not here to ask.”

“It means ‘love.’”

“That’s not a surprising reveal.”

“I know.” Lexa said. “It’s nothing. Just something I read once.”

“Do you think Clarke and Lexa really were in love? Or someone just added that to make the story better? Like, what’s a story without sex, right? But they’re so different. It seems unlikely.”

“It’s all there in the record.”

“Oh, the ‘record.’ Well, if it competes with the Minotaur, tell me. If it doesn’t, nevermind.”

Lexa gave her attention to the basket of fries between them. “Can I have the last ones?”

“Yes. I’m stuffed.”

“Don’t throw up everything when we start the combat scenes.”

“I learned my lesson,” Griffin said.

Lexa met her eyes, and grinned.

“I promise. I swear to you.” Griffin tried to mimic the Commander’s voice inflection.

Lexa swallowed, and then ate the fries, and didn’t say anything else until they’d walked back to the stage.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Griffin and Lexa grow closer as life becomes more dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slipped another little reference to Person of Interest. See if you can spot it.

“No good playwright would have her art reduced to garbage for the sake of a few dinars!”   
\- Xena: Warrior Princess

Chapter Five

They’d made it through the libretto three times. Titus swore he was going to re-write half of it, and gave them a day off. Their fighting was passable. Their love scenes, atrocious. Their monologues, uninspired. No one cried at the mountain. No one cheered when the Wanheda knelt before the Commander.

So be it. Griffin believed in Lexa, if not anything else. Something was happening between them. Tension ruled them both. Griffin wanted to shatter it. She wanted to shout it down. Lexa refused to take any bait. 

Until the public punishment of a no-name beggar.

Griffin and Lexa walked together to the square. A man was being whipped for stealing propane.

In the old days, they would have killed him. Whipping was supposed to be humane. Griffin had seen it in the circus many times, and once or twice at home in her village. But Polis was supposed to be different. Polis was supposed to be civilized, and clean, and honest.

Griffin had voiced her protests to her acting partner. Lexa hadn’t reacted at all.

“You just stood there, stone-faced,” Griffin said, as they headed toward their rooms.

“So?” Lexa didn’t look at her, but kept her gaze straight ahead as they walked.

“So didn’t you feel anything?” Griffin’s face grew hot. This was a fight she shouldn’t provoke, but anguish rolled off her and she wanted Lexa to share it--to relieve it--anything. “Do you ever feel anything?”

Lexa whipped around to face her. Griffin stumbled back. She anticipated the hot energy of Lexa’s anger, but Lexa’s voice was measured and dull.

“You feel too much, Griffin. You’re still pining for your dear, departed Bellamy. You left the circus, but you didn’t leave him behind.”

Griffin gaped. Lexa’s words sent ice through her, cooling the fires, exposing the hollow places. She did think of Bellamy, his smile, his burdens. He had wanted to change the world. 

“It’s true,” Griffin said, trying to mimic Lexa’s flat tone. “I do feel for Bellamy. I miss him. I feel sad. I came here because he would have wanted this--a chance to make a difference. I think about him because I haven’t met anyone else who makes me feel the way he did, until--” 

She couldn’t say “you,” but she could hold Lexa’s gaze with her own. She could match Lexa’s strength.

Lexa turned and began walking. But she spoke loud enough for Griffin to hear, as Griffin stumbled to keep up with her, as Griffin’s heart, still beating hard from the sight of violence and pain, fluttered from its exposure. 

“You’re wrong, Griffin.”

“I realize that’s your favorite thing to say--”

“There was someone. When I was just a girl. Someone who connected me to the world. Who showed me things beyond my imagining.”

“What happened? Where is he?” Griffin was panting now. Lexa walked fast.

“She was murdered.”

Griffin grabbed Lexa’s arm, to stop her so that Griffin could stop too, and close her eyes, and breathe deeply. Her chest hurt.

Lexa stood patiently in her grasp.

“By who? Kananites?”

Griffin opened her eyes again, and Lexa’s green gaze was on her face. “No. A rival lover. Just one of those things that happens. Out in the world. So I shut myself in. I locked the door.”

“I’m sorry,” Griffin said.

The air was still between them. Distantly there were the sounds of people talking, a dog barking, water running. But between them there were no sounds. Griffin exhaled slowly. She dropped her hand from Lexa’s arm. 

Lexa looked past Griffin’s shoulder. “When I see someone being whipped, I see Nia. I see her being punished for what she did to me.”

“And how is that working for you?” 

“It’s unsettling.”

Griffin nodded.

Lexa found her eyes again. “Even if it were Nia, it would be unsettling.”

Griffin cleared her throat. Tried to find her words in her heavy chest, her raspy throat. The night was all around them, pressing in. But Lexa was honorable again. It was important, somehow. Lexa was unlike anyone she knew, and it had to stay that way.

“What was her name?” She asked, though all of her wanted to end the conversation, to go to bed, to be alone, and safe, and away from this day.

“Costia.” Lexa looked at the sky, her cheek twitching. “She wore it well.”

“I’m sorry. For thinking you were.. So different from me,” Griffin said.

“No-culpa,” Lexa said. 

Lexa stood unmoving, present, as Griffin stepped forward and wrapped herself around Lexa’s shoulders. Lexa’s hands traced her back. Her chin against Lexa’s neck, Griffin let the day melt away. This felt better. This felt right, somehow. Like she belonged. In this shared pain. The thought jolted her gut, made her murmur wordlessly protesting the adjustment of fitting in. She had questions she didn’t want answers to. 

Lexa let her go. “It’s getting late.”

“Yeah.” Griffin shook herself, letting the cloak of wariness return, and set off toward the library.

Lexa followed, perfectly in step, her fingers brushing Griffin’s as their arms swayed. Moving apart, and then brushing again.

***

Griffin was beautiful as a warrior. Lexa had been drawn to Griffin already, but this was something that curled her toes and quickened her heart. She fought to keep from swallowing, to stay stoic on the stage.

Griffin strode forward from upstage, wearing leather and silver, her eyes painted in clan custom. Clarke had sketched this herself, and the sketch was in the library. At last something was historically accurate, and Lexa held her breath imagining the past.

But the present was with them, too. Griffin jaw was tense. Their argument and their revelations weighed heavily on Lexa’s mind, as it must on Griffin. As Griffin walked, her gaze flicked to Lexa’s, and then away. 

When she came to a stop in front of Lexa, she still looked forward.

Lexa said, “We welcome you in the spirit of friendship and harmony…”

Griffin smirked as she knelt.

“We welcome you, thirteenth nation.”

“I pledge my allegiance to you, heda.”

Words Clarke kom Skaikru swore never to say were spoken. Lexa cupped Griffin’s cheek in her hand, trying not to be clumsy, remembering Titus’s guidance that this was supposed to symbolize intimacy. Thirteen clans, but only one that mattered.

Lexa drew Griffin lightly to her feet. “The Skaikru and the Trikru are one.”

Cheers and boos erupted simultaneously from the other twelve ambassadors. The same actors that played the previous Commanders. Lexa faced the stage, dropping her hand to Griffin’s, and they both stood looking defiantly out, not looking at each other at all.

Behind them, Diamond lurked, staring just as boldly at the audience, with hatred in his eyes, and his hand on his dagger. 

***

Lexa turned the lamp down to its lowest setting. A bare orange glow in the darkness. She gazed at it, thinking that she should meditate. But she’d never been particularly good at it. Her mind spun too many thoughts. Her body had too many twitches, and itches, and desires.

She desired Griffin. Her body told her that, though her heart hadn’t accepted it.

Nor had her mind. Griffin was no one her family would approve of. Or common decency. A circus performer turned actor. An outcast from her village. There was no future in that. No settling down. No harmony.

No children. No brothers and sisters and Costia--

And further, Lexa hated travel. 

She’d been with lovers since Costia. A couple of girls that her family brought home to meet. Perfectly reasonable potters assistants or news writers--because Lexa loves the written word!--daughters of businessmen her father worked with. 

Lexa had courted them and slept with them, but it had never gone anywhere. It wasn’t love. One, Tania, had become a once-in-awhile thing. Lexa thought about seeking her out tonight, but it would be dishonest. She only wanted Griffin.

She wanted to see Griffin’s tattoos again. She wanted to feel Griffin’s muscled body move against hers. It was purely physical. Right?

No future. She kept reminding herself. Griffin’s story had tugged at her heart. Griffin spitting in her face had definitely been erotic. Maybe she should scratch that itch. Get it over with. Griffin hadn’t said she was exclusively with men. And surely she felt the chemistry between them. The touches. The embraces.

Lexa groaned. She would get no rest tonight without relief. She looked past the lamp to Griffin’s door. Knocking was tempting. She could offer some sex. No strings attached. Something told her, though, that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted something more than Griffin’s touch. 

She wanted Griffin at her side.

Without that commitment, she would be flying solo. She sighed, surrendering, and slid her hand under the covers, under her gown, between her legs.

The wetness that met her revealed her self-deception. All she could think about was Griffin. She closed her eyes. Griffin arguing with her. She stroked herself. Griffin’s breath, hot on her face. Griffin’s stage kisses, closed-mouth and meaningless. It was enough. She circled her entrance, wondered if Griffin’s strong fingers would enter her. If Griffin’s lips would take her. She came without a sound, bucking in the bed.

When she’d relaxed again, she turned out the light. Then there was nothing but the scent of arousal, and the touch of cool sheets.

***

A pounding came at the door. Lexa sat up in bed, heart already pounding. Before she could process the demanding noises, her door burst open. She screamed. She reached for the lamp, knocked it over.

“That’s her. The heda!” Two dark figures moved toward her, silhouetted by the light from the hall. 

She rolled off the far side of the bed as one struck at her from the near side. She landed with a thud, cursing her gown, that tangled her legs and exposed too much. She cursed her bare feet. She was trapped in the corner of the room.

“Stop!” She said.

A flash of silver in the light answered her. The figures moved close enough that she could smell meaty breath, hear their cursing, their threats.

“History belongs to us, little girl,” one said.

She grabbed the practice staff leaning against her bed and swung at them. One man jumped back. The other laughed. She charged, hands steady enough to poke his chest and send him back, before he grabbed the staff and tugged.

It left her hands. She screamed again. “Titus!”

The interior door opened and light spun in, illuminating Griffin’s monstrous face. “Get out!”

The men hesitated.

Griffin stepped forward. “Before I light you fuckers on fire!”

“She’s the Griffin. She breathes fire!” 

The men ran for the door. “We’ll be back, Heda.”

“I’m just the librarian!” Lexa shouted.

The door slammed behind them, to prevent any pursuit. But Lexa was in her nightgown and Griffin was trembling all over.

“Hey,” Lexa said, “It’s okay. They’re gone.”

Griffin dropped the knife she’d been holding. She didn’t meet Lexa’s eyes. “Who were they?”

“I don’t know. They called me the ‘heda’.”

“You’re not the heda.”

“I am to them.” Lexa grabbed Griffin’s arm, afraid she’d collapse. “Come here. You saved me.”

They sank onto Lexa’s bed. Griffin exhaled sharply. “All bark. No bite.”

“It was enough.”

Griffin’s eyes were shut tightly.

Lexa ran her hand up and down Griffin’s arm.

“You’re not even scared,” Griffin said.

“I was scared. Then you appeared.”

Griffin chuckled, but kept her eyes closed.

“I even hit one of them with my staff. You taught me well.”

Griffin looked at her, then, for a moment, and then leaned in to kiss her. Her lips were gentle but insistent, and Lexa’s own parted despite herself. Griffin took one taste, then drew back.

Lexa settled her hand onto Griffin’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. But I’m on your side. Whatever that side is.”

“I wish I knew myself.”

Griffin smiled at her. 

Lexa stole another kiss, brief and hungry. “Stay.”

“And what?”

“Protect me.”

Griffin shook her head, but allowed Lexa to pull back the covers and guide her into bed. They settled, not touching, with Griffin’s lantern burning on the beside table.

“This is bigger than both of us,” Griffin said.

“No,” Lexa said. “This is bigger than one of us. But not both of us.”

“Right. Well. I’m glad you’re here. Or I wouldn’t get any sleep at all.”

Used to noise and tension, Lexa theorized, Griffin fell asleep within minutes. Lexa stayed awake, watching her face in the pale yellow light. No one had ever asked her allegiance. She’d thought she’d known it instinctively. But now she wasn’t so sure.

Heda Lexa was revered. But that didn’t mean her precepts were followed. Lexa didn’t know whether to choose between the woman or the legend. So she just chose Griffin, and counted the rise and fall of her chest, slowly and surely, until her eyes closed as well.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CLEXA SEX. Today, we need it. #orlando

Chapter Six

Morning came to Lexa’s bedroom, turning the room taupe and orange. Memories of the terror of the night, and the kisses, kept Lexa from focus. She couldn’t forget them. Didn’t want to stop them.

Griffin had gone to the window and stared dully out it. She barely acknowledged Lexa coming to her side, until Lexa grabbed her shoulders and twisted her.

Lexa knelt in front of Griffin. “I want to do something.”

“Lexa. We have to talk about this. We can’t--”

“This is from--Lexa had secrets. And I want to share them with you.” Lexa took Griffin’s hand. “I swear to you. I swear on everything… I am with you in this. You and me… Whatever happens. I have no idea what’s going on, but I trust you.” Lexa didn’t quite meet her eyes. 

Griffin tugged Lexa to her feet. “I trust you too. I have this feeling--What about the chance to make a difference? That’s all we’ve talked about. Is it a lie?”

“I don’t know.” Lexa clung to her hand. Hot, sweaty, fingers twisting in hers. She didn’t look at Griffin. She didn’t want to lose whatever they had. They had to have something. It had to matter.

Griffin slipped her free arm around Lexa’s waist to draw her close. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes they did. I’m not giving up everything to save some city I’ve never been to. I’m with you, Lexa. Whatever it costs.”

Lexa lifted Griffin’s hand and kissed the back of it. Then she turned it over and pressed her lips to the palm. Griffin’s sigh answered her. She let go of Griffin’s hand to hold Griffin’s shoulder and bent to kiss Griffin’s neck.

Griffin’s grip tightened on her waist. Lexa took her time exploring the smooth skin. When the line of Griffin’s collar stopped her, she finally moved back enough to look at Griffin wholly.

Griffin yanked her into a kiss, hard and deep. Lexa moaned without meaning to. She opened her mouth to Griffin’s demands. They shouldn’t do this. They should talk. They should plan. But she needed Griffin. Her skin burned for Griffin’s touch. Life without that wasn’t enough anymore.

Griffin’s kisses peppered against the corner of her mouth and her cheek were touches of life. She twisted away anyway to pull Griffin toward her bed. 

“Please,” she said.

“You don’t have to ask,” Griffin said, reaching for Lexa’s nightgown. “I want this.”

“Have you thought about it?”

“I can’t stop.”

Lexa urged Griffin to sit on the bed. “Let me.”

Griffin watched her wonderingly, but didn’t speak, as Lexa undressed her. First shirt. Griffin kicked off her sleep pants herself, but left her shorts on, smirking when Lexa frowned in frustration.

“Stay,” Lexa said.

She stepped back and undressed in front of Griffin. Griffin’s hungry gaze devoured her. Lexa managed grace in dropping garments to the floor. That she had to attribute to Griffin’s coaching, too. Acting under pressure. 

She came to Griffin and cupped Griffin’s face. “They were wrong. To put anything between them.”

Griffin nodded. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“Bellamy was wrong too. I don’t have anything to lose anymore,” Griffin said. “But you could lose your whole life.”

“What life?” Lexa kissed her.

She was content with Griffin’s lips for a while, content to stroke her shoulders and her neck. To let Griffin tug her lip between teeth and laugh. But her back eventually complained, and she moved onto the bed, lying half on Griffin, propped up on an elbow to kiss and stroke her face.

She felt a pang of sadness that she didn’t have the nobility to resist the way that Heda had. That was truly the stuff of legends. She was just a girl, and there was a girl in her arms, and that was enough.

She brushed tears from Griffin’s eyes. Then, with great willpower, left her long enough to draw Griffin’s shorts down her legs. 

Griffin’s smirk was back, but she obliged, and coaxed Lexa back to her with a crooked wrist.

“I missed you,” Griffin purred as Lexa settled on top of her.

“I’ll fix that.” Lexa gave herself over to Griffin’s breasts. She had imagined but not hoped for this intimacy, to take Griffin’s nipple in her mouth and hear Griffin groan in response. She licked until the whole tip was swollen for her, and then moved to the other, offering a gentler sucking, which made Griffin squirm and murmur for more. 

When she bit down, she was rewarded with cursing and encouragement. Her plan had been to move lower, but she lingered, sliding her hand down instead, finding wetness that humbled her.

“Not inside,” Griffin said. 

Her first coherent remarks. Lexa swallowed the surge of jealousy, and stroked across Griffin’s clit. Griffin gasped. 

One last touch of lips to nipple, and then Lexa shifted for Griffin’s mouth again. Griffin obliged her with kisses and rocking hips. She vibrated with pleasure. Her eyes were closed and a faint smile creased her face.

Lexa drew back to watch. Her fingers moved deftly, never straying, offering Griffin the safety of respecting her command, allowing her, hopefully, enough trust to let go.

“I love women,” Griffin said. “But I think you are a master of loving women.”

“I do have a skill.”

“Many skills.”

Then Griffin’s words left her, swallowed up by Lexa’s kisses, until she shook nearly to pieces, then cried out, over and over, the ripples spreading through both of them. After she came, she squeezed her eyes shut, and closed her thighs, evicting Lexa.

“Griff?”

“I just.” Griffin sniffed hard, then coughed. “I haven’t been with anyone…”

“Since the love of your life.”

Griffin opened her eyes and met Lexa’s. “Exactly.”

Lexa smiled. She tucked Griffin’s hair behind her ear.

“Now,” Griffin purred, pulling Lexa down for a kiss.

A pounding came at the door. “Lexa! You’re late!”

Lexa cursed.

“We can finish this later,” Griffin said.

“We will finish this soon.” Lexa reluctantly got up and got dressed. 

Leaving Griffin gloriously naked in her bed, Lexa couldn’t escape the ominous feeling that came over her with Titus’s call. Things were going to get worse before they got better. At least, with Griffin’s kisses leaving bruises on her mouth, she had a reminder of what to fight for.

***

“He hath given his empire up to a whore;   
who now are levying the kings of the earth for war.”  
Shakespeare

The charcoal portrait of Finn, his eyes wide and sad, his hair everywhere, framing him and filling the paper, looked nothing like the savage killer or leader of armies he was. Griffin thought that the figure of Roan, a sculpture of a long-haired man with a spear and scar, suited better.

She was in the archives with Lexa after another hard day of rehearsing. Lexa had coaxed her, challenged her. Break from the blood-thirsty lover Mars, whose heart did not reflect Clarke’s. He was full of war but she wanted peace. 

“So Clarke is in love with Finn and Lexa? She gets around,” Griffin said.

Lexa shrugged. “The way Titus has framed it, she is the strongest woman, paired with the strongest man. They lead, but are at odds. Falling for Lexa is a convenient excuse to take power, to change regimes.”

“He doesn’t look like a killer.”

Lexa peered over her shoulder at the portrait, but said nothing.

“What do Lexa’s diaries say?”

“That killing Finn was a great act of strength. It established Clarke’s power. It severed her ties to War. Love was a weakness she overcame.”

“And Lexa taught her to love again. To become weakness. To kneel and surrender at her feet.”

Lexa went to the table and filled two glasses with brandy. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay. Back to the Skaikru. It’s like Cleopatra and Caesar. Two worlds colliding, allied by love. I’m Cleopatra.” Griffin struck a regal pose.

“I think you’re Caesar. He was the invader. Cleopatra was the leader of her empire.”

Griffin made a face. “I guess so. She was Greek, besides.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re ‘Lexa’?”

Lexa took a sip of brandy.

“Lexa the Great? Alexandria? A Greek-Egyptian city? Come on.”

“I like being Cleopatra. But--” Lexa picked up the second glass and offered it to Griffin. “Maybe you’re Marc Anthony.”

“I’m not sure that ended well.” Griffin said, but she followed Lexa out onto the patio, and sat next to her on a crumbling bench, to look down at Polis.

“Maybe it’s even more ancient. You’re Helen of Troy. Caught between a king and a lover.”

“That caused war, not peace.”

“Things are more civilized, now.”

“Are they?” Griffin asked.

“During the Renaissance, there was a revival of interest in Classical works.”

“I don’t know anything about that. Stories, yes. History, no.”

“Griffin kom Skaikru. Because of the great alliance there was the Great Restoration, when we gained computers again and with them, all of our histories. Preserved by foreigners while the world plunged into darkness.”

Griffin made a great show of yawning. 

Lexa sighed. “What good are the stories if you don’t know where they come from? How do you learn from history if you don’t know its repetition?”

“Stories teach you how to be a good person. How to live. History seems… Lacking, in that regard.”

“What do you get from Helen of Troy?”

“That love is worth fighting for.”

“Even forbidden love?”

“There is no forbidden love.”

“Says the circus performer.”

Griffin shrugged one shoulder, watched the sky turn pink. “Does making love forbidden stop it?”

“I suppose not.”

“What about making technology forbidden?”

“That’s about survival. We can’t repeat the mistakes of our past. Motors and transistors and radio. But no satellites. No robots. No networking.” Lexa said the phrase like she was reciting it. 

“Okay I guess it’s hard to make a Kananite argument when I didn’t understand any of those words.”

Lexa smiled, catching her eye. “It’s more fun to talk about old stories with you than politics.”

“And romance.”

It was flirting, but Lexa held her ground, nodding and toasting Griffin with her glass. “Let me show you something.”

Griffin threw her leg over the bench to face Lexa. “Okay.”

Lexa removed her medicine bag and worked to open it. Everyone wore them, remnants of a time when the most precious items had to be kept close, because battle or disaster could befall a house, or a hiding spot. People carried their whole lives. Now, medicine bags were mostly decorative, and carried colorful stones or jewelry.

Lexa already knew that Griffin’s, of blue rabbit fur, fringed with wooden beads, held a lock of Bellamy’s hair. 

Lexa pulled out a gold coin. She handed it to Griffin. It was heavy. 

“Is this real gold?” Griffin asked.

“Somewhat impure, but yes.”

It had the head of a woman on each side. Different women. “Who are they?”

“Athena and Nike. It’s a coin from Alexander the Great’s time.”

Griffin handed it back. “For Lexa the Great.”

Lexa shook her head. “For me, the keeper of the library. Wisdom and victory. It weighs heavy on me, to remind me of my duty.”

“Which is what?” Griffin asked. She wanted the truth, not the secret. 

“To protect your stories.”

Lexa leaned forward, and Griffin, smiling, went to meet her. The kiss was chaste, friendly, but Griffin let the desire show in her eyes as they parted. Lexa cupped Griffin’s cheek, and laughed.

“I think you’re mocking the inevitability of Fate.” Griffin said.

“It felt for a moment like we were falling into someone else’s story, and then…”

“We didn’t?”

Lexa shook her head. “I just feel like me.”

“I just feel like me… Kissing you,” Griffin said, so she did. This time, she pressed against Lexa’s lips until they parted, so she could steal into Lexa’s mouth. Lexa gasped faintly and dropped her hand to Griffin’s shoulder, squeezing. She tasted of homemade brandy, not ancient candles, and Griffin’s mind and body settled into the here and now of the Polis sunset.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band shows up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Terrorism (Mild?). If this is still too sensitive a time, save this for a later date. It'll keep.

They drew apart when shadows fell over them. It was no longer safe to be a girl in a musical out at night. Griffin got up. “Come on. Titus will complain.”

Lexa took her hand and rose. “He might have reason to.”

They walked from the tower to the archives hand-in-hand, Griffin swinging the brandy bottle. The smell of smoke reached them as they turned a corner. 

“My parents!” Lexa surged forward, but Griffin grabbed her.

“No, wait. It’s not. It’s just the stage.”

They crept forward, coughing. Firefighters were already moving with piles of dirt to throw on the stage, but Griffin caught a glimpse of the wild orange flames before they were buried.

A “K” had been set ablaze.

“Let’s find Titus,” Lexa said.

“He’ll have sent a messenger to our rooms.”

Lexa nodded.

There were no more kisses that night. They stayed together, embracing, wearing street clothes and keeping the lights aglow, as men guarded them.

***

Octavia and Lincoln stood at the slip of the stage.

Griffin stopped her scene, mid-spit, so that it dribbled down her chin.

Lexa laughed.

Titus threw up his hands. He frowned at the two intruders. “How did you get past the guards?”

Octavia smirked.

Lincoln looked innocent.

“Are you two… Together?” Griffin asked.

“Yes,” Octavia said.

“It’s a long story…” Lincoln started.

“No it’s not. Our grief for Bellamy brought us close. We missed him and found solace in each other, and through that, saw what Bellamy loved in us both.”

Griffin blinked.

Octavia gestured at the stage. “Are you two together?”

“Yes,” Griffin said, at the same time Lexa said, “No.”

Griffin squinted in Lexa’s direction, but Lexa didn’t say anything. Griffin resumed her observation of Octavia and Lincoln.

“I’m a little grossed out,” Griffin said.

“Ditto,” Octavia answered.

Griffin squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Why are you here, circus freaks?”

Lincoln folded his arms. “To protect you.”

“What?”

Lexa stepped closer to Griffin.

“Griffin the Dove Attacked by Kananites!” Headlines are everywhere. The circus is milking it. But Lincoln got worried.”

“Lincoln did,” Griffin said sarcastically.

Octavia scowled. “We can’t lose you, too.”

Griffin swallowed the dust of grief in her throat, grateful when Lexa’s touch settled against her arm. She covered Lexa’s hand with her own. “It’s not that bad.”

“It is that bad,” Lexa said. “Someone’s trying to kill us.”

“Is it your singing?” Octavia asked Griffin.

“Ha. Ha. Maybe it’s your face.”

Lexa tightened her grip.

Lincoln groaned. “Griffin, come back with us.”

“I can’t.”

“This can’t be worth your life. There’s video circulating of the, um, some scene with a grey circle of people? It’s terrible.”

“See?” Lexa gestured at Titus.

Titus rolled his eyes.

“It’s not that. I can’t go back to where...he was,” Griffin said.

“So you do remember him,” Octavia said.

Griffin covered her medicine bag. “As much as you do.”

“I doubt--” 

Lincoln elbowed Octavia in the ribs.

Lexa gave Titus a wave, and then shoved Griffin forward. “How about we all have lunch?”

***

“Where are your wings?” - Wicked

“And Clarke blew up the Mountain, so that technology could never be used to harm Trikru again. She stopped the missiles with her own hands. She gave Lexa the Last Mountain Man as a hostage, and Lexa gave him mercy, so that peace would reign everywhere.”

Lincoln said, around a mouthful of chicken, “That’s the narrator? I mean, chorus? No wonder people want to kill you.”

Griffin sighed.

“Clarke murdered men, women, and children, so that Lexa’s hands would be clean of the bloodshed, so that nothing like that would ever happen again. Clarke’s great sacrifice. The savage did what the civilized would not.”

“Deep,” Octavia said.

“I admit, I don’t really get it,” Griffin said.

“That’s probably because there are so many lies it doesn’t make sense,” Octavia said.

Lexa nodded, and said, “Yes. No one will listen to the truth.”

“The truth is boring!”

“So the Terrible Wanheda didn’t murder a bunch of babies?” Lincoln asked.

“Well…”

“And the last man was freed, for real,” Griffin said.

Lexa frowned at her.

“It’s your favorite story,” Griffin said. “I listen.”

Lexa gave her a gentle smile.

Octavia rolled her eyes.

“So now you won't go anywhere without us,” Lincoln said.

“Can I go to the fucking bathroom?” Griffin asked.

He gestured her away.

Griffin grunted, got up, and headed toward the back wall.

“She inspires loyalty,” Lexa said.

“Despite herself.” Octavia sighed. “She wanted my brother to be a hero. Now she’s pretending to be one in his place.”

“It’s all pretend, right?” Lincoln said. “Why guard circus performers and actors with the Commander’s soldiers?”

“If it didn’t matter so much, why bother attacking us?” Lexa asked.

“There hasn’t been a raid in fifteen years. Maybe the warrior caste is getting bored.”

“There are always skirmishes. This is different. It’s not warriors.”

“Maybe not now. But if things get provoked long enough…”

“Who will Polis fight? Who are the enemies?”

“All the little towns and villages that might be harboring terrorists,” Lincoln said.

“That wouldn’t be a very noble war.”

“There’s no such thing,” Lincoln said.

“Not even against oppression?” Octavia asked.

“What are you oppressed from doing?” Lexa asked.

Octavia fell silent, but fire flickered in her eyes. Lexa suspected she carried a gun, in defiance of the Commander’s rules. 

The dove came back. She ran her hand down Lexa’s back as she sat down.

Lexa shivered, her attention still on Octavia. 

Being isolated and only knowing her family for so many years, and then meeting Griffin, who was so full of life and goodness, had distracted Lexa from other people in the world. Other people who were not like Griffin. Other people who cared about things she didn’t, and who could kill boys Griffin could not kill.

“Was Griffin always like this?” Lexa asked.

“Like what?” Griffin asked. “What did I miss?”

Octavia shrugged. “We didn’t know her before the circus. You should ask Raven.”

Griffin groaned and put her face in her hands.

“Raven? The engineer?”

“That’s the one. I knew she had moved to Polis once her Guild training was up. She grew up with Griffin.”

Griffin groaned again. “Don’t--”

“Griffin shot her,” Octavia said.

“--Tell her,” Griffin finished.

“How did you manage that?” Lexa asked.

“Oh, so you know,” Octavia said. “Yes. How did you manage that, Griff?”

“It was an accident.”

“Raven the Cripple,” Lexa remembered. Then covered her mouth, and tried not to look at Griffin.

Griffin bent over to bang her head on the table.

Octavia looked rather satisfied.

***

“Your friends are nice,” Octavia said, as Griffin slipped through the adjoining door, wearing a white satin nightgown.

“I can’t believe they’re here. But they are,” Griffin said.

“Yes. Why, again?”

“Some misplaced sense of duty born out of grief and family,” Griffin said.

“It’s nice.” Lexa put down her hairbrush. She wore a similar gown, black satin to Griffin’s white, and wasn’t surprised when Griffin came and pulled her into an embrace.

Lexa enjoyed the touch of Griffin’s body against hers, separated by almost nothing. She grinned and wrapped one arm around Griffin’s shoulders.

“So, my friends asked us a question. Are we or aren’t we?” Griffin asked.

“We should be,” she said.

Griffin nodded. “Why not?”

“I wouldn’t want to put you in danger.”

“Shssh. Let’s forget about that.”

Lexa nodded.

Griffin kissed her. Her lips pressed strongly, sure and supple, hot and inviting. Lexa held on with both hands and kissed back. She nipped at Griffin’s lips, and then captured the lower one between her teeth, and pulled.

Griffin moaned, a heady sound, and retaliated. Attacking her mouth with hungry kisses, Griffin’s touch slid down her back, to her hips. Lexa, supported, slid one hand over Griffin’s breast. Griffin rewarded her with another moan, pushing closer. Her nipple rose against Lexa’s palm. 

“Let’s sit down,” Lexa breathed.

Griffin pressed her forehead to Lexa’s. For a moment they breathed together. Then Griffin bent and kissed the side of Lexa’s neck. Lexa twisted to give her better access. Her knees went weak. She sagged.

“Right. Sitting down,” Griffin mumbled. She swept Lexa into the bed, sprawling next to her, so they were side by side, half-entangled already.

“That was deft.”

“I have many skills,” Griffin purred. 

She captured Lexa’s lips again. Lexa, in the advantageous position, filled her touch with Griffin’s breasts, eager to feel the mounds with her hands, with her body. Her mouth settled for being penetrated by Griffin’s tongue. She tweaked a nipple and was rewarded with a bite.

“Not fair,” Griffin said. She toppled Lexa to the sheets, and slid across Lexa’s body. She kissed Lexa’s neck and across her chest.

Lexa laughed and buried her fingers in Griffin’s hair.

A knock came at the door. “Dialogue changes!” Paper was slid underneath.

“Shit,” Griffin said.

“Work beckons.”

“What would Titus do to us if we didn’t learn our lines?”

“Probably worse than the Kananites.”

Griffin groaned when Lexa got out of bed, but dutifully began to read when Lexa tossed the pages at her. “Maybe it’ll get better.”

“Can’t get any worse,” Lexa mused.

Griffin pursed her lips, unsure.

***

“I love your tattoo,” Lexa said, tracing the outline of the blue creature on Griffin’s back. They’d rehearsed for hours, then fell into bed, exhausted. But Lexa couldn’t keep her hands still. 

“I’d like it more if I could see it,” Griffin said.

“It’s the most brilliant blue. The wings… They’re like your wings. They must keep you safe when you’re in the sky. And the eyes. Piercing, intelligent. It’s like, a very symbolic portrait of you.”

Griffin was silent.

Lexa, who’d been petting an inked foot, hesitated. “Griff?”

“I’m nothing like that.”

“Yes, you are. You’re confident and sure and wise…”

“Wise? Please. You’re the archivist.”

“You know more stories than I do about Clarke and Lexa.” She’d almost said, “Griffin and Lexa.”

“But what good am I?”

“You’re a good friend, Griffin. Octavia and Lincoln are proof of that. Why do you have to be more than that?”

Griffin exhaled forcefully, her back tense. Then she rolled over and wrapped herself around Lexa. 

“You’ll see.”

Lexa curled into the sturdy embrace of Griffin’s arms. “Tell me about the minotaur.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.” Lexa closed her eyes.

“Okay, so, back then, a hundred years ago, the world was a lot more dangerous. There were fewer people, and where the people did not have walls to protect themselves, dangerous monsters roamed. The realm between Arkadia and a Trikru village was just such a place, and warriors as mighty as Lexa the Great herself had been torn to pieces by a monster no one had ever seen…”

Safe from the world, Lexa fell asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit gets real.

“I think Bellamy’s here,” Octavia said, idly as she and Lexa sat on an audience bench. 

Four words and Lexa’s entire world changed.

Griffin and Diamond were on stage, practicing with daggers.

“What are you talking about? He’s not here. Or he would be… Here,” Lexa said.

“Bellamy did ride off that night. Right into an ambush. I think the Commander has him.”

“Where? In Polis?”

“Where else? She wouldn’t lock him up too far away from her. Somewhere that the Kananites could rescue him. Or I could.” Octavia clenched her fist.

“That’s ridiculous. What good is Bellamy?”

“Not just Bellamy. Others, too. Not the leaders but the ones most passionate. The true believers.”

Lexa watched Griffin. “The ones who would do what the leaders won’t do.”

“Exactly.”

“Is that why you’re really in Polis? Not Griffin?”

“Griffin’s important too. She would want us to find Bellamy. No matter what she’s told you, Lexa.”

“She tells me all about Bellamy,” Lexa said, feeling defensive.

“Then help us find him.”

“How?” 

“There must be records. You’re the record-keeper. You probably know about the dungeons already.”

Lexa was silent. She watched Griffin start a monologue, confident and sure. Savage and beautiful.

“I’ll look, but I think you’re crazy,” Lexa said.

Octavia narrowed her eyes. “People say that all the time. Just wait. We’ll get my brother back and then we’ll expose the truth.”

“The truth has become only one thing. I just want to kiss her,” Lexa said.

“This is the real world, Lexa. The people you love can die.”

***

“You can’t become my prince. Because you’re a girl.” - Revolutionary Girl Utena

Lexa was sickened by how easy it was. She, the Archivist, protector of the giftscrank, of the vault, went to the drawer in the main hall with the arrests and transfer records, and found it. 

They hadn’t even changed his name.

She took the name of his prison to Octavia, and then tried to put Bellamy out of her mind.

How could she think of him, and let Griffin undress her at the same time? Was Griffin thinking of him when she traced a path down Lexa’s chest with her fingertip? 

When Griffin lowered her mouth to Lexa’s breast, taking in the nipple in a chuckling, nipping manner, Lexa tried to let go of the man between them. Griffin was leaving a mark on her. When Griffin was gone, that’s what Lexa would have left. Marks. Scars. Pain.

She pulled Griffin’s hair, and Griffin arched her neck with a surprised smile. 

Still tugging, Lexa pushed Griffin back on the bed. She finished undressing herself. Pants and underwear and socks to the floor. Griffin, topless too, chest heaving, gaze liquid, lips parted, tempted her. She yanked open Griffin’s belt.

“This is a new you,” Griffin said. “I like it.”

“All is change,” Lexa mumbled, as she straddled Griffin’s thighs, leather trousers still between them. “I want you.”

“Take me,” Griffin said. Then, “All of me.”

No, not that. Never that. That was his.

Lexa shook her head, bending to kiss Griffin’s throat. She kept her hands tangled in Griffin’s hair, holding her still, nuzzling along her collarbone. Pressing hot kisses. Trying to burn into Griffin what she felt. Love and heat. Everything all at once.

“Hurt me,” she whispered into Griffin’s ear.

Griffin had been squirming underneath her, holding her hips. She stilled. “What?”

“I want to feel your nails on my skin. I want to feel you inside me. All the way. Like a sword into my heart.”

Griffin, ever cat-like, flipped Lexa easily, and rolled onto her. “What the fuck, Lexa?”

Lexa met her gaze with wide eyes and no words. She touched Griffin’s cheek.

“What are you afraid of?” Griffin asked.

“What am I afraid of? What am I not afraid of? People trying to kill us. Fires. It’s not a very good play, Griffin. I don’t meant it’s not historically accurate. I mean, aesthetically. 

“You may be a dove, Griff. But you’re the warrior. You’re still the warrior.” 

Griffin slid a leather-wrapped thigh between Lexa’s legs. Her medicine bag hung between them. With Bellamy’s hair. Lexa brushed it with her fingertips. Then found Griffin’s gaze again. “Please. Be strong for me.”

Muscled and dextrous, Griffin tried to comply. She held herself above Lexa, balanced on one arm, and entered Lexa with three fingers, stretching and strafing her, only her wetness, ever-present for Griffin, ever open to her, saved her from real damage. Then as almost an afterthought, a fourth finger, down below, to violate her.

Lexa cried out.

Griffin stilled, but did not retreat. “Is this what you want?”

“This is what I want.” Lexa squeezed her eyes shut as Griffin fucked her, heating the way that the roughness soothed her guilt to pleasure, how it built inside her, flaying her open and exposed with every attack. Griffin could kill her and it might not be enough.

Griffin was too clever, too smart, and twisted away, leaving Lexa’s arms grasping at nothing. Griffin’s tongue, thick and textured, covered her clit, and though Lexa felt abandoned and ravaged she came anyway, sobbing and praying Griffin would stay away and not look at her.

But Griffin slid up and took Lexa’s brokenness in her arms, and Lexa settled her cheek on Griffin’s chest, listening to the exhausted breathing, feeling the strength ebb from Griffin’s bones.

Griffin stroked Lexa’s hair. Lexa patted Griffin’s belly, then moved lower, lightly tapping between Griffin’s legs. A hand grasped hers, and tried to curl her fingers toward Griffin’s entrance.

“Please, Lexa,” Griffin said.

Lexa traced circles and brushed Griffin’s clit with her thumb, unwilling to do more than dart in and out, to test with two fingertips, just to the knuckle, finding the tightness too much. She trembled. Griffin guided her, as steady and strong as before, until Griffin grunted and shuddered against her, and then released her.

Lexa closed her eyes and held Griffin’s waist instead, trying to find some peace.

“I have secrets, Griff,” she said, and blinked away tears once again.

“I know all your secrets, Lexa.” Griffin yawned. “Try to get some sleep.”

Lexa closed her eyes and tried to believe her.

***

Diamond was waiting at the lip of the stage when Griffin and Lexa arrived. Lexa went to the throne to prepare. Diamond put his hand on Griffin’s shoulder and held her back.

“Here,” he said, handing her a knife. A steel kitchen knife, recently sharpened.

“This isn’t the right one,” Griffin said.

“You’ll use it. You’ll use it on Lexa when I tell you why.”

Griffin gazed at Lexa. “Why?”

“Because Bellamy Blake is alive.”

“What?” Griffin whirled around to face him.

“I’ve been following her. Lexa. She told your little friends, the circus freaks, where to find him.”

The knife felt cold in Griffin’s hand. “What?”

“She’s not going to tell you. This play is more important to her than you are. Keep Griffin happy, keep Griffin bedded, those were Titus’s orders. Can’t have you running after your old boyfriend, can you?”

“Then why would Lexa know about Bellamy at all?”

“You know why.”

Griffin knew about the presses. Titus had shown her to give her power over Lexa. It wasn’t enough. Maybe it was just the illusion of power. Another trick.

“Why? Why you, D?” She asked. Her grief and anger were her own. His, she could not fathom. 

He pulled down his tunic and revealed the tattoo above his right breast. Two circles crashing together. Two worlds colliding. An atom splitting. She shook her head.

“People need to forget this play,” he said. “They need to forget Unity Day and forget community and remember that we are all here for ourselves. That our neighbors are our enemies. That it is the Commander’s fault. We must have war.”

“War against who?” 

“Us against them.” He squeezed her shoulder and then went to join the chorus that gathered upstage.

She still had the knife. There was Lexa. Lexa kom Lexa. With two guards between them.

“Leave us,” Griffin commanded. The lines came so easily. They were in her. She could use them as she wanted.

The guards parted. 

Lexa had come and now waited at the edge of the stage, fear in her eyes. Fear and wonder. Was it acting? Or did Lexa suspect the truth?

Lexa was ‘big’ on truth, after all. 

Griffin seethed and clutched the knife handle. What she couldn’t do in the real world, she could fake. It’s what Clarke would do. Had done. 

She went to Lexa and pressed the blade against her throat. Lexa did not flinch. They had rehearsed this a hundred times.

“Clarke,” Lexa said. 

The word curled around them like devotion.

It made Griffin’s blood boil. She pressed harder.

Lexa winced. 

The blade cut into skin, drawing a red line, and then there was a teardrop of blood running down Lexa’s neck.

“I know what you did,” Griffin said.

“Clarke,” Lexa tried again. Her face contorted in pain. And then, “Griffin.”

“That’s not the prop knife. Stop this,” Titus said. He came to them, but couldn’t move between them. Not with Griffin standing so close.

Griffin turned, twisting Lexa until Lexa was between her and Titus, pressed against Lexa’s back, the blade still at her neck.

“Don’t come any closer,” Griffin said.

“I don’t know what’s going on. She won’t harm me,” Lexa said.

Griffin growled. “What, because I’m a coward?”

“You love me.”

Griffin pressed her head into the back of Lexa’s shoulder. She barely felt Lexa’s hand over hers on the hilt. 

“Griff, what are you doing?”

“I know about Bellamy.”

Lexa froze in Griffin’s arms, proof, and Griffin straightened, trying to grip the knife again. Lexa pushed against her hand. 

Titus stood frozen.

The chorus circled them in a half-moon, watching. 

“Griff. Do you know why I know about Bellamy, Griffin? Because of you. I went searching for you.”

Griffin squeezed her eyes shut. 

When she opened them, Lexa had turned in her arms, facing her. The knife was along Lexa’s ear, now. Not between them.

“You know I would never betray you, Griff.” Lexa cupped her cheek.

“Lexa betrayed Clarke.”

“We’re not them.”

Griffin held onto Lexa’s gaze. “The Commander tortured him. Why should I not take Bellamy’s side?”

“You know what side we’re on. Are you doing this because of Bellamy, or are you doing it because of what’s right? Did I betray you, Griff? Or am I saving you?”

Lexa’s words were imploring. They were impossible to hear. Griffin looked past Lexa at Titus. 

Titus bowed his head.

Lexa’s thumb brushed away a tear from Griffin’s nose. “Everyone needs you on their side.”

Griffin sensed where Diamond was. She carefully handed Lexa the knife. “Like we talked about.”

Lexa threw the knife. It lodged in Diamond’s chest. He gasped and stumbled back. 

Griffin grabbed Lexa’s trembling hand. 

Lexa addressed Titus. “This war is turning us into murderers.”

“There’s no war.” He stared at Diamond. 

“Did you know about Bellamy all along?” Griffin asked.

Titus looked up slowly and searched Griffin’s face. “I had no idea.” Horror was in his expression. “This it not what I planned.”

“We’re not staying.”

Diamond was pale and dead. The chorus had fled, except one man, who stood beside Diamond, and pushed back his hood at their attention.

Titus frowned. “Jasper?”

“Diamond’s my brother. He must be avenged.”

“No!” Griffin shouted, but it was too late. 

Jasper plunged his own knife into Titus’s abdomen. “Unity Day is done. This is a declaration of war.”

Titus groaned, slumping to the stage. He clutched his robes. His hands came away covered in blood.

Jasper glanced at Griffin and Lexa. “You can’t save the world. You’re just little girls. Go home. Back to the circus.” He spat. “Back to your books. Bellamy is no one to us.”

He knelt and cut away Diamond’s medicine bag and then left. From the distance, there was shouting. The chorus must have told someone. Maybe the authorities. Griffin grasped Lexa’s wrist.

Lexa yanked away. “He’s right. It’s too big for us. I was a fool.” 

Griffin managed to capture her fingers, and Lexa burned hot. 

“Stop. We need to forget this.”

Griffin said, “I can’t forget this. I need you.”

“Are you going to fight for us? You’re pathetic.” Lexa nodded at the dagger she’d thrown.

Griffin was crying, but she wasn’t backing down. “Lexa, please. All we’ve talked about.”

“Hypotheticals. There’s going to be a war, Griffin. We need to forget what we saw and go back to our lives.”

“No. It’s you and me--”

“There’s no you and me, Griff.”

“I swear to you--”

“Stop!” 

Griffin stopped. She stood her ground, shoulders heaving with breath.

“Titus died for this. I’m not ready to die.”

“Lexa--”

“Go. Go find Bellamy, make love, make war, make babies. I’m done,” Lexa said.

Griffin wiped at her face and at her nose. The tears kept coming.

“Wait,” Titus said, slumped on the stage.

Griffin knelt next to him.

“I had investors.”

Lexa glanced around the bare stage. “Not very good ones.”

Titus shook his head. “No. It was--was laundering. Their money is in the vault. Safe at the back.” He whispered the code and coughed, blood staining his teeth. 

“Titus, don’t die,” Griffin said.

He touched Griffin’s cheek, leaving a mark of blood. “It’s enough to start a war, Griffin. You and Lexa. Octavia and Lincoln. Bellamy. R--” He coughed and sputtered. “Raven. The Warrior, the Smith, the Maiden. The Stranger.”

“We’re not a deck of cards, Titus,” Griffin said.

“You’re as popular as the Commander. Lexa’s as brilliant. Find a way.” 

Griffin held him in her arms until he was gone, while Lexa paced. A crowd gathered. The barriers that had kept them away for days were gone. In their place was a spectacle. 

Death. The ultimate scandal.

“Who did it, Griffin?” someone asked.

“Was it the Kananites?”

“Was it an execution?”

“What’s going to happen to Unity Day?”

Griffin stood addressed them. “It was a tragic accident. A stunt went bad.”

Men came with stretchers. 

Griffin reached for Lexa’s hand. This time, Lexa took it. She was trembling and not looking at anything.

“The show must go on,” Griffin said. “We need to get a new director. It will take… about a week?” she glanced at Lexa.

Lexa nodded absently.

“We’ll be back.” 

Griffin tugged Lexa along until they ducked into a tavern. Lexa changed her bloody clothes and washed her hands until the water ran red, and then began sobbing, unconsolable even as Griffin rushed to hold her.

“I killed someone,” Lexa said. “I didn’t even hesitate. I… wanted to.”

“You did what had to be done to save us.”

“Not Titus.”

“That’s what war is, Lexa,” Griffin said. “That’s why no one wants it. No one wants to know that no matter what they do, someone will die anyway. But you already knew it.”

“Because of Costia.” Lexa straightened, holding onto the sink ledge. Looking down at her clean hands.

“Yeah.”

“But I never wanted Nia to die.”

“That’s why Titus picked you. Because you faced it and still made the strong choice. Who’s to say you didn’t make the right choice back there with Diamond, too?”

Lexa turned around. “Why did he pick you?”

“Training. And to remind you that a life is still worthwhile without killing. That there’s something else.”

Lexa stepped again into Griffin’s waiting arms, holding on until she stopped shaking, until the empty grief was replaced by whatever Griffin’s beating heart was sending to her.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Octavia stood in the center of the library, scaring Lexa. 

Octavia held no match; She was a match. She was on fire and she held Clarke’s drawing of a horse on fire aloft and she was screaming. Finding out about Bellamy meant finding out about everything, and Octavia had revolt on her mind. She’d found Lexa, who’d come to gather the last of what they needed for their journey, and Griffin was supposed to round up Octavia and Lincoln.

To prevent them from doing this. 

Lexa had no options against such a force of nature. Octavia, who could be anything, but who worked in the circus during a time of peace, a time of drought, where leadership meant nothing and intelligence, even less. In another world, she could have just been an ordinary girl. Here she had become a monster, ravaging Lexa’s life. Griffin’s. Bellamy’s.

Lexa grabbed the antique gun from the pedestal and aimed it at Octavia. Her hand didn’t shake. She had been holding prop guns too long. “I found Bellamy.”

“Yeah, you sure did.” Octavia’s eyes grew larger. Not afraid. Angrier. “I am trying to make a fucking point!”

“What point is that?” Lexa kept her voice even.

“You are not fucking Lexa the Great. This is not 100 years ago. You are terrible at your job. We are going to go and find Bellamy and you are the loose end, Lexa. You desecrate the name.”

Lexa frowned but lowered the gun. Still gripping it hard. Her palm sweated. “The picture. Please.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to damage an artifact?” Octavia asked.

“Just put it down. Make your case. I’m more than you think I am,” Lexa said.

Octavia rolled her eyes, but she set the drawing back on the desk, carefully avoiding the broken glass from the frame. She ran her fingers along the horse’s neck, and then glared at Lexa.

Lexa fought the urge to wipe her hand on her pants.

“Who’s drawing these now, Lexa?” 

Lexa swallowed.

Octavia gestured with her now-free hand. “Out there, in the square. There are more drawings. Cartoons. Satires. Here, in your office, there are transcripts, aren’t there, of the current commander’s court. Execution logs. Transportation. Commerce. All this data and all you do is read about the Thirteenth Tribe all day.”

“I know the records are there. That’s how I… I found Bellamy,” Lexa said.

Octavia’s scowl reached her jaw. “What is in there that’s more important than Bellamy?”

Lexa looked away, to the window. 

“Shit,” Octavia said. “You do know.”

Lexa raised the gun again.

“What’s going on?” 

Griffin came from the back room, disheveled, half-smiling. She went to Lexa’s side. “Stop.”

“She’s one of them,” Octavia said.

Unarmed and the smallest person in the room, Octavia was still the most terrifying. She took a step forward and Lexa and Griffin barely held their ground.

“One of who?” Griffin asked.

“One of the people in this city who knows we’re on the brink of disaster. That war is coming. That the Commander is trying to win by silencing all dissent. By imprisoning or killing anyone who has a better way than hers. By keeping us from knowing that there’s less food, less power, and too many people. But it’s all here.” Octavia gestured to the library. “All the proof is here.”

“And you’re going to shoot the messenger?” Griffin asked.

“She’s the opposite of a messenger,” Octavia growled.

Lexa glanced at Griffin and lowered the gun. “I have to tell you something.”

“No you don’t. I know.”

“Know what?” Octavia asked.

Lexa put the gun back on its pedestal. “Let me show you.”

She led them past a heavy wood and iron door into a closet filled with papers and photographs. Everything was haphazardly arranged. Papers covered the floor. Lexa lifted up the rug. A trapdoor was underneath. She nodded to Griffin, who raised the trapdoor. 

“After you,” Griffin said to Octavia.

“Hell no. You first.”

 

Lexa climbed down the ladder first, then Octavia, then Griffin. At the bottom, she turned a light switch to reveal a small room, filled with books and files.

“This is the giftschrank,” Lexa said. “Where Lexa’s diary was kept.” 

“Everything you don’t want people to see,” Octavia snarled. She picked up a book at random. “Artifact Intelligence.”

“Artificial Intelligence,” Lexa corrected.

“What’s that?”

“That’s not what you’re here to see,” Lexa said.

Lexa reached between two bookcases. She grunted and hefted, and then the bookcase on her right swung open to reveal a steel door. She typed a code into the panel on the door. It glowed red, then swung open.

Inside were three printing presses, vats, tables, and dozens of aluminium plates. 

“How do you know about this place?” Lexa asked Griffin.

“Titus took me here, the first week I arrived in Polis. He said if I didn’t cooperate, you and I would both be executed. Along with our families.”

“And you still?” Lexa’s eyes were wide, her gaze on Griffin’s face.

Griffin took her by the arms. “Yes. We need to get through this together.” She glanced at Octavia. “All of us.”

“You would have made a fine warrior,” Octavia said.

Griffin nodded, and then looked at Lexa. “Luckily I found some others.”

Octavia picked up a pamphlet. She read it, slowly and quietly, while Lexa and Griffin stood together.

“This pamphlet. It says a lot and offers no evidence. But you have the evidence, don’t you?”

“I know the truth,” Lexa said.

Octavia nodded.

“And you’re wrong,” Lexa said.

“I’m wrong?” Octavia glowered again.

“You’re wrong and Titus was right. The Thirteen matter. The Hundred matter. The seven billion matter. The truth is everything. Take one piece away and the truth collapses.”

“So what’s the point?” Griffin asked.

“Unity.”

Octavia scoffed.

“It won’t work,” Griffin said.

“It’s too late,” Octavia said.

Lexa ushered them out of the vault and closed the steel door. They climbed the ladder again, and once in the library, Lexa turned on a record player to drown out their voices.

“Have you two ever thought about what happens after the war?”

“Everyone’s dead?” Octavia asked.

Lexa crossed her arms.

“The survivors would be separated. The water people, the farmland people. The city would probably be annihilated. And the Kananites… “ Griffin’s words trailed off.

“They don’t want communications networks. They want planes. And rockets. Satellites.”

“They want the Mountain,” Griffin said.

“The Mountain blew up a hundred years ago,” Octavia said.

“There must be more. Abandoned. There’s one, they say, in the swampland, filled with dead leaders. Technology perfectly preserved, beyond imagining.”

“But there’s no more nukes. The last one--” Griffin started.

“They can build more nukes,” Octavia said. “Is that what the Commander is trying to do?”

Lexa shook her head. “The Commander is trying to feed people. But she won’t be able to. Then it won’t matter what her desires are. If there’s war, Polis will lose.”

“Unless what?” Octavia asked.

“There is no ‘Unless what,’” Lexa said.

“There has to be. We’re going to rescue Bellamy and then he’ll… we’ll....” Octavia looked at Griffin, panic in her eyes.

“We’ll survive,” Griffin said.

“How do we do that?”

“We find the Mountain first.”

“How?” Octavia asked.

Griffin gestured at the library.

“Oh.” Octavia frowned at Lexa. “Do you already know?”

“No. But there are other vaults like this. Computers. Records. And I know where to start.”

“If we help her,” Griffin said.

“How did you know Griff would agree to all this?” Octavia asked Lexa.

“Titus knew.”

“Knew what?” Octavia asked.

“That Griffin, outcast warrior, lover of Bellamy, reader, was a hero.”

A faint blush crept over Griffin’s cheeks. “I’m not--”

“You’re a Night Blood,” Lexa said.

“And Skaikru,” Octavia said.

“I also don’t believe in destiny,” Griffin said.

“You were in the right place at the right time.”

“And falling in love with you?”

Lexa looked down. “Not part of the plan. We thought… You’d do it for Bellamy’s memory.” She glanced at Octavia. “For his beliefs.”

“And your beliefs?” Octavia asked.

Lexa exhaled and raised her head. “I’ve been groomed since birth for preservation. To preserve as much as possible, when all seems lost. When they burn this tower down, and every scrap of paper in it.”

Griffin went to the computer on the desk. “Networks,” she said.

“It’s inevitable,” Lexa said. “It’s the only way.”

“Your brains, Griff’s brawn, my spirit. What’s Lincoln?” Octavia asked.

“He’s the heart,” Griffin said.

“And Bellamy?” Lexa asked.

“Fire.”

“This is fun. And Raven?” Griffin asked.

Lexa grinned.

“Flight,” Octavia said. 

*** 

Lincoln, Octavia, Griffin, and Lexa crowded into Raven’s little workshop.

Raven didn’t look up from her lathe. “Oh look. It’s my childhood.”

“Raven,” Lincoln said.

Griffin knew better to talk. She folded her arms defensively and tried not to scowl.

Raven’s expression darkened. “Lincoln. Who’s the new chick?”

“Lexa,” Lincoln said.

“That doesn’t help me much.”

“Lexa the Librarian,” Griffin said.

Raven straightened up. “I’ve heard that name. Wasn’t sure it was a real person, though. Or just some weird fan fiction where Lexa the Great becomes a giant nerd.”

Lexa said nothing.

“Great. Introductions over. We need guns,” Lincoln said.

“You need what?”

“You heard me.”

“There are no guns allowed in Polis. Go get a crossbow from the circus.”

“It’s for Bellamy,” Octavia said.

“Why would I do anything for Bellamy Blake?”

“Please,” Lincoln said. “You loved him, too.”

“It was a one night stand, I keep telling you. And I remain unconvinced.”

Lincoln glanced at Lexa.

She un-shouldered her bag and set it gingerly on Raven’s worktable. From it, she pulled out a slender hand-held electronic tablet.

“That thing still work?”

“It’s solar. The transistors are still good. And I know you have more. You can fix it.”

“I have better in the back room,” Raven said.

Lexa grinned. “It’s not the device. It’s what’s on it. Every schematic of every starship. Every truck. Every electrical circuit from the Mountain. Plans for nuclear weapons. How to build a lightbulb. It’s all here. Drawings, words, videos, simulations.” Lexa put it on the table.

“Networks?” Raven asked.

Lexa nodded.

Griffin held her breath.

“For this you want a few measly guns?” Raven chuckled. “Sure. I don’t have any bullets, though.”

“We do. Back home. Come with us, Raven.”

“I don’t have enough good legs.”

Griffin cleared her throat. “You know my mom would love to see you.”

Raven’s expression melted into a smile.

“Sick fuck,” Griffin said.

“That she is.”

“Wait, what?” Octavia asked.

“Let’s just go get the guns.”


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

They argued about transportation for nearly two hours before settling on a peddler’s wagon drawn by two horses, and a third rider--Octavia--as a scout. 

“After all,” Griffin said. “Who can travel freely along the roads? Share information from town to town? Lead scouting parties ahead and get asked no questions?” 

“The circus,” Octavia breathed.

“Networks.”

“You guys were traitors all along,” Raven said. 

She drove. 

It was five harrowing days--including two inspections and one attempted robbery--until they arrived at Clarke’s village. But much of the travel was on concrete interstates, where frequent travel kept the weeds away, but horse shit was everywhere. 

They followed the water. At the gates to Hog Island they were inspected, but Griffin showed her tattoo and they were ushered in after only formalities. They led their horses to the massive terminal and turned them over to a stable boy.

“How far until Rikers Island?” Octavia asked.

“I think we’re halfway,” Griffin said. “We’ve never been that far north with the circus, have we?”

“I haven’t.”

“And how long since you’ve been home?” Raven asked. She was on crutches.

“Five years.”

“I’ve been to Hog Island more recently than that,” Raven said.

“Don’t remind me. Why don’t you live here, again? Settle down, play house?” 

“This is a community of farmers and warriors.” Raven frowned at her.

“And?”

“And I’m an engineer. Polis is one of the few places I can go.”

“So your work is more important…”

Raven narrowed her eyes.

Griffin pursed her lips. She ignored the glances Octavia and Lexa gave them.

Griffin’s mother Abby came around the corner. “Griff!”

Abby ran to them and hugged Griffin tightly before moving onto Raven. “You look great.”

“I smell like horse.”

“That’s okay. We have baths.” Abby stepped away, keeping a hand on Raven’s arm. “You’re all welcome here.”

“This is Octavia and Lincoln, they’re from the c-circus.” Griffin wasn’t sure why she stuttered the last word. The shame she’d managed to avoid for so long was suddenly present again. Her friends were no shield against it.

Lexa stepped forward with her hand out. “I am Lexa. From Polis.”

“She’s my partner in this thing--er. She’s my girlfriend. I mean, my lover.”

Octavia and Raven exchanged a look.

Lexa turned pink.

Griffin was zero for two on this encounter. 

Abby shook her hand, and neither of them said anything more, as Raven thankfully interrupted.

“We’re heading north.”

“With the circus?”

 

“Yeah. With the circus.”

“Winter is coming. Wouldn’t you rather be in Florida?” Abby asked.

“I would,” Griffin muttered.

“Well, get washed up, and let me check you out before dinner.” 

“Mom--”

“How long has it been since you’ve seen a doctor, Griff?”

“Mom!”

Abby folded her arms and smiled.

Griffin entwined her fingers with Lexa’s and said, “I still know where everything is. Let me show you around.”

“Wait,” Abby said. “Why are you really here?”

Griffin glanced at Octavia.

“Bullets,” Octavia said.

Abby sighed.

“It’s for a good cause,” Lexa said.

“It always is,” Abby said.

“Mom, shit is happening.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Abby sent them off with a wave of her hand.

Raven lingered. “Want me to look at the plant across the river?”

“Tomorrow,” Abby said. “Let’s make sense of the world tomorrow.”

***

“I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure-seeker, or a gunfighter... but I am proud of what I am.” - The Mummy

Lexa stood at the edge of the water. The fortress was on the hill behind her. Across the river was a power plant with black stacks and broken windows. The river itself was a thin trickle of dark water through a dry dirt plain. She could cross it, if she wanted. There was also a bridge, twenty feet high. She tried to imagine the water reaching it, and couldn’t.

“It’s our armory,” Griffin said, walking to her side. “Raven wanted to restore it, generate electricity for Hog Island, but Abby said no. So Raven left. And now look at it. No water for the electricity.”

“Is it true there used to be skyscrapers?”

“That’s what I hear. Everything crumbled after the nukes. No one lives there anymore. We’ll have to pass through it tomorrow and you’ll see how the superstitions come out.”

“I’ve never been out of Polis,” Lexa said.

“Do you wish you’d stayed in your tower?”

Lexa shook her head. “I knew I’d be exposed. I didn’t know I’d be exposed to such a private exam, though.”

“That’s mom for you.”

“You love her very much.”

“I want to be just like her. But I’m not.”

“She leads her people. You lead us.”

“I don’t. Octavia--”

“Is a weapon.”

Griffin was silent. She turned her back to the river. Grape vines were planted on latticework as far to the south as she could see. 

“I am too,” Lexa said.

“A weapon?”

“Yes.”

Griffin nodded. She stood close to Lexa in order to brush shoulders. The river smelled. Fish and algae and something chemical. Something like Lexa’s photo lab, but worse. Acrid. Griffin wrinkled her nose.

“I think,” she said. “I liked it best in Polis, where you could teach children boring things and I could teach them fun things. We made a good team.”

“Boring things like reading and writing?”

“And that stuff mattered. That history mattered. Instead of just juggling. Playing. Protecting your friends.”

“There’s having enough to eat.” 

“I don’t see how either of us is going to help that.”

“You can’t lose faith now, Griff.”

“Faith in what?”

Lexa pressed her cheek to Griffin’s shoulder. “Faith in me.”

Griffin exhaled. “We’ll get Bellamy and then we’ll figure out what is really wrong. Where we went wrong. Maybe where I went wrong was having too much faith in the Commander.”

“And not enough in yourself.”

Griffin laughed. “I had a good reason.”

“No you didn’t. Anyway. I’m starting to hate my name.”

“Don’t.” Griffin turned and took Lexa’s face between her palms. “It’s the name of an unlikely hero.”

Lexa smiled. 

Griffin kissed her, soft and tender. Lexa kissed her back.

***

“Mom, what’s really going on?” Griffin asked, as Abby hit her knee with a tiny hammer.

“Hm? It doesn’t concern you.” Abby ignored her gaze and concentrated on a scar on her calf.

Griffin moved her leg. “Everything concerns me.”

Abby looked up. “Since when?”

“Since...Mom, I’m a warrior. I’m the daughter of the clan leader. I care. We had chicken at dinner, but no pork. Our territory includes farmland, but there were no greens. It’s like that all over. I didn’t expect it at home. But I can see what’s going on.”

“We don’t need saving, Griffin. You’re not--” Abby stopped, and moved out of sight again.

“Not what. One of you?”

Abby circled around to take Griffin’s face in her hands, to stare hard at her. “Be happy, Griffin. Forget all this and be with your lover and tell children's stories. You weren’t meant for this.”

Griffin shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “I was.”

“No,” Abby said. 

“I have to be.”

“The Commander will take care of it.”

 

“When’s the last time the Commander took care of anything?”

Abby struck Griffin’s cheek. When they were panting, Griffin rubbing her skin, wide-eyed, Abby said, “You’re just a child.”

“A lot has changed in five years.”

“Has Lexa put these ideas in your head? She’s certainly not a warrior.”

“Maybe they come in all sizes. All types.”

Abby exhaled. “I’ll give your bullets, Griff. But then you have to leave. In the morning.”

Griffin nodded.

Abby wrapped herself around Griffin’s shoulders, and whispered, “And try not to get killed.”

***

Griffin slipped into bed beside Lexa and closed her eyes. “We leave in the morning,” she said.

Lexa made a noise in assent. Then rolled over and poked Griffin in the shoulder.

Griffin blinked.

“What’s with Raven?”

Griffin sighed. “Raven’s older than me. Like a big sister. She was already a woman and trying to teach me to--She was so brave. She thought anyone could be brave. And she wanted to help me. Six years ago, I guess… When I shot her, with an antique revolver...it was four hundred years old, it shouldn’t have fired, but it was Raven’s gun and she’d made bullets herself… I hit an artery. In her leg. I knew how to make a tourniquet, but…”

“But you didn’t kill her. She’s alive.”

Griffin shook her head. “I got mom and mom put her hand right into Raven’s leg and closed the wound and stitched it… Raven was always good at everything.” Griffin rolled onto her back.

“She seems smart.”

“Yeah. And tough. And agile. She always got picked first. As the heda, mom was always fond of her, and when I realized I wasn’t going to grow up to be Raven…and then I ruined Raven, too. She couldn’t even fucking walk.” Griffin squeezed her eyes shut. “I left, and Raven stayed. I used to think Raven was the daughter mom never had, but no...they have this genuine friendship. This partnership I can never have with mom. Not after…”

“After what? There’s more?”

Griffin shook her head again, but tears dripped down onto her nose and chin. “It was my dad. I couldn’t save him. But I don’t want to talk about it. Not here.”

Lexa gathered Griffin into an embrace. “Is that why we can’t stay?”

Griffin nodded against her chest.

“It’ll be alright.”

Griffin nodded again, as if that were the truth.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

They traveled another week with the wagon, ever-northward, following hand-drawn maps and sometimes the coastline. The air turned colder. Signs of civilization returned. The roads were clear, though they rarely saw travelers, and those they saw didn’t speak much. Farmlands were dry and barren. 

There were no boats.

“We’re going to an island” Octavia said. “Do we build a canoe?”

“We could,” said Raven.

Lexa shook her head. “They must have a way to get supplies to the prisoners. Their own boat.”

“You want to hijack a boat?” Griffin asked.

Lincoln grinned. “Why not?”

“Look, we’re not there yet. Maybe they just built a fucking bridge,” Raven said.

“How close can we get? Surely they’re patrolling the coasts, too.”

“All the more reason why we need to hijack a boat,” Lincoln said.

“Lincoln’s right.”

Griffin folded her arms. “I still don’t see any boats. Wait a minute, where are we?”

“We passed a sign that said Jers’ Turnips a ways back,” Raven said. 

“Right. The highway. I know where there’s a circus.”

“You said you’d never been this way before.”

“I haven’t. But it’s legendary. It has to still be there. And it has a gambling boat.”

Octavia handed Griffin the map.

Griffin stared at it. “Okay. I don’t know where it is. But it’s on the coast. And you can see the Statue of Liberty from there.”

“I know that place,” Lincoln said. “The Iron Mountain.”

“We are not going to the fucking Iron Mountain,” Octavia said.

“We have to.”

“It’s haunted,” Octavia said.

“Not if it has a circus.”

“Maybe it’s a haunted circus.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Raven said. “We’re going north.”

***

The circus had burned down. The smell of ash and char was still in the air. The ground was hot as they walked along the concrete toward the sea.

“This was recent,” Octavia said.

“Wonder who torched it,” Griffin said.

“Rival circus? The Commander? Hungry peasants?”

“Some guy who lost his shirt at craps,” Lincoln suggested.

Lexa stopped amidst the ruins and picked up a half-burned book. “It’s a New Testament,” she said.

“Well, it was.”

“I can’t stand to see another book lost.” Lexa opened it. “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.”

Griffin snorted.

They walked toward the smell of salt and the sheen of sand and saw the remnants of a bridge.

“There,” Griffin said. She pointed to a tugboat anchored a hundred yards out to sea, unmoving in the still water, past the fringes of the desert. 

“Damn,” Octavia said.

“We can stay on the boat until it’s dark, and then sail.”

“It’s a steamboat,” Raven said. Her face lit up. “It must have coal. It looks like it’s in great shape.”

“Maybe they left it behind when they fled,” Griffin said.

“Or they burned up,” Octavia said.

“How do we get out there?” Raven asked.

“We should find a place to hide the horses.”

“There’s nothing here.” 

“Inside the Iron Mountain?” Griffin suggested.

“Oh, crap,” Octavia said.

They led the horses into a concrete and brick building, still standing, but with no roof, and fed the horses grain they’d brought and put out the last bale of hay from the wagon, which wasn’t enough.

Raven accepted that she wasn’t going on the boat, and settled down on some boxes and took off her leg brace, wincing.

Lincoln and Octavia made dinner. Griffin explored the rest of the mountain.

Lexa knelt beside Raven. “It hurts?”

“All the damn time.”

“Can I..?” Lexa hovered her hand near Raven’s knee.

“What? Are you going to fix it, Polis-girl?”

“I just..” Lexa turned away and dug in her satchel. She pulled out a tablet. “I have a book on pain management.”

“In that thing?” Raven gazed at it as Lexa turned on the screen.

“I read a lot.”

Raven chuckled. “You shouldn’t have brought that. It’s too valuable.”

“What good is it if I don’t have it where I can use it?”

Raven rolled her shoulders back. “To answer your question, yeah. Have at it. It feels better when someone rubs it.”

Lexa nodded. She flipped through pages.

Raven said, quieter, “Abby tried to give me willowbark. But if shit is coming… I can’t take medicine from a city.”

“You’re no less worthy than Hog Island,” Lexa said.

“Maybe when I was useful.”

Lexa frowned, but said nothing, and traced Raven’s calf lightly, looking for a reaction.

“Go ahead and do your thing,” Raven said. “That’s the ironic part. Hurts inside. Can barely feel outside.”

“Hold this.” 

Lexa put the tablet in Raven’s hands, facing outward, and sat on the floor in front of the crate, to see the screen. Then she dug her fingers into Raven’s thigh and twisted. There was a crunch.

Raven cried out. “Stop--It’s…” She looked at her leg. “It’s completely numb. I don’t feel anything.” She wriggled her toes. “I don’t feel pain.”

Lexa nodded. “I can’t leave it like that. I have to undo it in a few seconds.”

Raven rubbed her face. “Then I wish you hadn’t. I wish--” She took deep breaths. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Hold on.” Lexa reached for Raven’s leg again.

Raven gritted her teeth. 

Lexa jabbed into Raven’s thigh. 

“It’s back. Ow. Ouch. Fuck.” Raven winced. “Why doesn’t Abby do that?”

“It’s dangerous. And she might not have known. The book’s in another language.”

“How did you know to try?”

Lexa met Raven’s eyes. “It’s dangerous.”

“You do dangerous things.”

Lexa pursed her lips.

Raven laughed. “Like putting your life in the Dove’s hands.”

“It’s gotten me this far.”

Raven looked around the ruined building. “We’re alone, we’re cold, we’re starving. I guess we could be dead.”

Lexa stood and took the tablet back. “We’re not dead.”

“Lexa.” Raven caught her wrist. “Thank you. If we make it through this alive… Let’s work together.”

Lexa smiled. “That’s only the beginning.”

Raven nodded.

Lexa tucked the book away. “Do you like Lexa com heda?”

Raven shrugged. “We played Grounders and Sky when I was a kid. Then I never thought about it much anymore. I never even thought she was… real. Anyway. If we had a communication network we could check in with Hog Island and see if they’re all right.”

“If we had wings, we could fly,” Lexa said.

Raven grinned. “Tomorrow you’ll meet Bellamy Blake. Then you’ll see someone take flight.”

Lexa’s expression fell. She turned. “I’ll see if Octavia needs help.”

“Any recipes in that tablet?” Raven asked. “Add salt!”

*** 

Octavia sheathed her machete. “Ready?”

Lincoln nodded and hefted his pack.

Lexa looked worriedly at Griffin.

“I wish I could go with you,” Griffin said.

Lexa nodded.

“Griff--” Octavia began.

Griffin waved her off. “I understand. You look hot in leather pants,” she said to Lexa.

Lexa’s cheeks tinted.

“As I’ve said before,” Griffin mumbled.

Raven punched her in the arm.

“Remember, when we come back, we might be running,” Lincoln said.

“We’ll be ready. Just come back.”

Lincoln hugged Griffin, and then Raven. Octavia followed suit, and then Lexa, who lingered with her hand on Griffin’s cheek.

Griffin covered her fingers. “You finally get to meet Bellamy.”

Lexa rolled her eyes, smiling. “I cannot wait.”

Octavia jerked her head. “We’re off.”

They trailed out, leaving Griffin and Raven staring at the door.

Raven punched Griffin’s arm again. “Stop sulking, Griff. We have work to do.”

***

They had cut the boat’s engine to drift into the dock, but it didn’t seem to matter. There were no guards. Octavia looked up at the prison walls. Silent.

“Ambush?” Lincoln suggested.

“But why. They don’t know we’re coming. Or who we are. A rifle, two machetes, and a couple of arrowheads isn’t a threat,” Octavia said.

“The entrance is this way,” Lexa said. She walked east, along a well-kept tar path with faded white lines.

“We’re just going to walk in the front door?” Lincoln asked.

Octavia stalked past him. “You got a better idea?”

The front gates were open. The island remained dark and eerily silent. When they lost the starlight, Lincoln wound up a copper torch.

“Don’t,” Octavia admonished.

“There’s no one here to see.” He shined the light into an office. An ancient computer screen, broken in the center, caught the reflection.

“There,” Lexa said, pointing past it to a ring of keys.

Lincoln grabbed them. He shone his light in every corner of the room, but there was nothing but paper and batons.

They walked past an empty mess hall, through more open gates, iron covered in chipping paint. The ceilings pressed low overhead. The smell of retching, feces, and rotting food began as they reached the first cellblock. But still silence.

Lexa looked longingly at the ragged paperbacks scattered on the floors of cells, but Octavia pressed on.

They moved to the second floor of cells. “Hello?” Lincoln called. His voice echoed.

“Hello!” Came a single male voice, bouncing somewhere skyward.

Then a chorus of “Help me”s, gravely and deep, high-pitched and squealing, came pounding through the space, bouncing off walls, shaking the bars.

“Hundreds?” Lexa asked, struggling to be heard over the cacophony.

“Dozens,” Octavia said.

Lincoln waited until the wave crested and subsided, then shouted, “Bellamy Blake!”

“Here!” Came a voice, weak and hoarse. “Third level. East side.”

“Bellamy, Bellamy.” A chant began.

They ran to the staircase and to the third level, across catwalks and cement, their shoes thudding, until Bellamy’s cry was loud and close.

“Here!”

Lincoln shone his light in a cell that stank of mud and night. Bellamy stood in a threadbare tee shirt and torn pants. He raised his hand to block out the light.

Lincoln shone the light on his own face instead.

“Strongman,” Bellamy said.

“Sky boy,” said Lincoln.

Octavia took the keys and fumbled with them, pressing each one at the lock, missing.

“Here. I know which one.” A figure stepped from Bellamy’s side. He reached through the bars and took the keys. His clothes were in worse shape than Bellamy’s, stained with blood and grease. But his eyes were bright.

“Sis,” Bellamy said. He came to the bars and took Octavia’s hands.

“Who’s this?” Lincoln asked.

“That’s John Murphy. My cellmate in this hell hole. He’s coming with us.”

“Okay,” Lincoln said evenly. “Where are the guards?”

“They left three days ago when we ran out of food,” John said.

“They didn’t let you go?” Octavia asked.

“They tried. The first prisoners attacked and killed one of them. So they left the rest of us here.”

“Can’t blame them,” John said.

He yanked the door open. Bellamy darted through it and wrapped his arms around Octavia. He sighed deeply, cradling her head, nearly sobbing. Lincoln embraced them both, and Bellamy, when he recovered, turned his face to kiss Lincoln, and then Octavia.

John stuck his hand out toward Lexa. “I’m John Murphy.”

“Lexa,” Lexa said, shaking his hand.

“Nice to meet you. Sorry I don’t smell better.”

“We need to let everyone go,” Bellamy said, straightening.

“They can’t come with us,” Octavia said. “We don’t have that much food either.”

“They won’t.”

Lincoln nodded.

John shook the keys. “I’ll start at the top. Work my way down.”

“We won’t leave without you,” Bellamy said. “I promise.”

John gave a quick smile, and then jogged toward the staircase.

Lincoln folded his arms and raised his eyebrows.

Bellamy laughed, “He’s not my new boyfriend. But look at him. He’s freeing those monsters, who raped him every other day, for months. He’s my kind of guy.”

“And you?” Octavia asked.

Bellamy met her gaze. “No. And not him, after I knew. He kept me alive. I returned the favor.”

Octavia put her hand on his chest.

“How’d you find me?” Bellamy asked. 

Octavia jerked her head toward Lexa. “She betrayed the Commander.”

Bellamy squinted. “For me?”

“No,” Octavia said. “For Griff.”

“Oh.” Bellamy said.

Lexa looked down at the floor.

“It’s fine. I mean. Um. Where is Griffin?”

“She’s back at our camp. We didn’t bring her. In case there was fighting.”

“But you brought her?” He frowned at Lexa.

“Griffin’s been training her,” Octavia said. She handed Bellamy her machete.

He swung it carefully. Then nodded at Lexa.

“She’s told me a lot about you?” Lexa said, half-smiling.

“Then you have me at a disadvantage.”

“You all can get to know each other on the way to camp. Let’s go,” Octavia said.

Lincoln gestured. They went to the dark stairwell, led by one lonely light. On the ground floor, John joined them, panting.

“I really hope there’s food,” he said.

“I promise,” Lincoln said.

“You’re Lincoln, right?” John asked.

Lincoln nodded.

John offered a crooked grin. “Yeah, you’re Lincoln.”

***

Griffin rubbed the back of her head nervously. “Are they coming?”

“Yes,” Raven said. “And they’ll be surprised.”

“I’m surprised.” 

They’d cleared out the space, made a few bed pallets out of couches and military blankets. Then Raven had rigged up the lights while Griffin hunted. She’d found a rabbit and a snake entangled in a battle to the death, and now they were both roasting. There was nothing green, but they’d found flour and sugar and made bread. 

Griffin wanted milk. She wanted blueberries and cheese and turnips. But she settled for hoping to feel full, and hoping to see Lexa alive again.

“They should be here.”

“You have no idea how long a prison break takes. Or how long it takes to get to the island. Or if there’s weather.”

“There’s no weather.”

“Griff. Stop driving me crazy.”

Griffin paced silently.

The door creaked open. A lanky boy came in, dirty but smiling. He threw out his arms.

“I’m home.”

Raven squinted.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“That’s no way to treat my friend,” Bellamy said, coming in behind him, grinning.

“Bellamy!” 

Griffin flew into his arms. She wrinkled her nose at his smell, but kissed his neck, and squealed. He spun her around, one full circle. Then let go.

“You look good,” Bellamy said. “You look better.”

“Better than you at least,” Griffin said, laughing.

The others came in. Lexa cast a furtive glance at Griffin.

Griffin took her hands and kissed the corner of her mouth. “You saved Bellamy.”

“Hardly any saving. There were no guards,” Octavia said.

“What?” Raven asked.

Lincoln shrugged. “Just us and them. They were going to starve to death in another couple of days.”

Octavia glanced at Lexa. “You kind of saved everyone’s lives.”

Griffin embraced Lexa. “Thank you.” She lingered, keeping her hands pressed to Lexa’s back. Lexa sank into her.

Bellamy coughed. “I’m glad to see you all, I really am, but is there food?”

“Come,” Raven said. 

There was a table and benches, and plates and forks and knives. A couple of mouthfuls of rabbit for each of them, a piece of snake, and enough flat bread to fill their stomachs. Raven found rye whiskey, which John and Octavia drank liberally with her. The rest had water from a spigot, cold and metallic.

They ate silently and let peace surround them. Far from what was left of civilization, they made a merry temporary home.

When they were done the five adventurers took cold showers in dim light while Griffin and Raven cleaned up.

“I’ll take watch,” John said. “I don’t know you people so… Come and get me when you’re all done reuniting.”

“John--” Bellamy started.

“It’s cool.”

Raven glanced between the assembled. “I’ll join him. You can be circus freaks.”

Lexa opened her mouth, but Griffin yanked on her arm. She bit her lip.

“Let me show you where the machine guns are,” Raven said.

Sweet,” John said.

Bellamy hadn’t bothered to get fully dressed. He wore fatigues with no shoes and no shirt, just a jacket slung across his shoulders. His arms were strong but his torso was thin. He had two pink, jagged scars across his ribs.

Lincoln went to him. “You’re really…”

“I didn’t leave,” Bellamy said, his eyes filled with tears. “They took me. I didn’t leave you.”

Bellamy put his arm on Lincoln’s shoulder, and then his forehead. His back heaved.

Lincoln cupped his cheek, lifting Bellamy’s face until he could kiss his lips. “I know.” 

Bellamy kissed him back like he was still starving.

Griffin wanted to look away, but her heart was full. She loved them. She found Lexa’s hand and squeezed.

“What are we going to do?” Lexa asked.

“Let’s pretend we don’t have to do anything,” Griffin said. 

Lexa rested her head against Griffin’s arm. Griffin closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, Octavia had joined Lincoln and Bellamy. She, too, cupped her brother’s face, drawing it down to kiss his forehead, and then his lips.

Griffin shifted. “We’ll leave you guys to--”

“No,” Bellamy said. “I know what we’re all going to do. So we just should do it. Together.” His gaze was on Lexa.

She looked down, and then back at him, meeting his eyes. 

Bellamy disentangled himself from Lincoln and Octavia and went to her. He brought her to her feet. 

“My favorite story of the great Commander Lexa is the Last Mountain Man,” he said to her.

Lexa gasped. 

Griffin came to them, her hand on Lexa’s back. 

“I’m not--I’m not that kind of man. But I wish I were. I wish I were more like her.”

“I’m not her.”

“Aren’t you?” He brought her hand to his chest, stepping closer. “The prisoners, they all talk about how someone with Nightblood is going to come back. Someone from the ‘kru of Beca, who will take down the false Commander and free us.”

“I’m not--”

“None of us are.” Bellamy kissed her knuckles. “Tell Griffin why you freed me.”

Lexa faced Griffin. “I need your help.”

“For what?”

“To save the world.”

Griffin pursed her lips and didn’t say anything, which made Lexa smile.

“We can’t make it worse,” Octavia said. “Not if we all agree.”

Lincoln nodded. “I agree.”

“What’s going on?” Griffin asked.

“Lexa’s the leader of the Kananites.”

“I just keep things organized and send information, like any good librarian.”

“And she has the name,” Lincoln said.

“And she’s battle-trained,” Octavia said. “Sort of.”

“She’s going to be our new leader,” Bellamy said.

“She is?” Griffin asked.

“I am?” Lexa asked.

“Griff, you’ve spent the most time with her. What do you say?”

“I would die for her.”

“And this--” Lexa said, gesturing to Bellamy’s bare chest, “Is our pact?”

Bellamy’s grin was bashful.

“I’ve never lain with a man before,” Lexa said. “I’ve always wondered.”

“It’s not that exciting,” Griffin said.

Octavia came forward and put her hand on Lexa’s shoulder. “I’ve never been with a woman before. I definitely wouldn’t want to try with anyone but you.”

“Hey, standing right here,” Griffin said.

Bellamy let Lexa go. “I would do anything for you, Griff.”

“Then listen to my girlfriend. She didn’t care that I wasn’t a warrior.”

“You were born to act,” Lexa said. “I just get nervous and throw up, but you… You are Clarke Griffin.”

“I just say the words.” Griffin folded her arms. “So I’ll keep saying them. I just want to do something to.. Make up for my life. And turning cartwheels isn’t it.”

Bellamy smiled. “Lexa did something I couldn’t. She made you care.”

Griffin spread her arms and lifted her shoulders. “And here I am.”

Octavia pushed past Lexa, grabbed Griffin back the back of her head, yanking her hair, and kissed her. Griffin mumbled and froze, but parted her lips in acceptance.

Lexa glanced at Bellamy. “I thought I’d be jealous, but…”

“Nope,” he agreed. “It’s just hot.” He turned to Lincoln. “Take off your shirt.”

Lincoln obliged. He was bare-chested, smooth and earth-tinted, strong, and watching Octavia. 

Griffin wrenched away. “You bit me.”

Octavia smirked. 

“What’s O’s role in this again? She’s going to get us all killed,” Bellamy said.

“Thanks, brother. I’m inspiration.”

“She’s inspiring,” Griffin agreed.

Bellamy snorted and grinned at the ceiling.

Griffin pulled off her shirt and shucked her bra.

“You always were one of the guys,” Lincoln said.

“I could kick your ass,” Griffin said.

Lincoln chuckled.

Lexa came up behind Griffin and wrapped arms around her, covering her breasts. She gave a withering, sultry look to Bellamy.

“God,” he said.

“Come on,” Octavia said, stripping and heading for the pile of cushions and blankets. “I want to get fucked.”

Lincoln and Bellamy both took a step toward her, and bumped shoulders.

“She’s your lover,” Bellamy said.

“She’s your sister.”

Octavia’s hand was between her legs as she watched them.

“I have an idea,” Lincoln said. 

He grabbed a pillow and knelt before Octavia. He pulled her thighs apart and bent his head to her.

“Yes,” Octavia sighed. 

Lincoln wiggled his ass at Bellamy

“Oh,” Bellamy said. “Um.” He spit on his hand.

“Wait.”

Griffin got a cup and went to another room of the fort. She grabbed a crowbar and pried open a steel drum she’d found earlier. The exertion made her heart pound in her ears. She was sure she was as wet as Octavia. Thinking of Lincoln’s tongue made her think of Lexa’s. She filled the cup from the drum and hurried back.

Lincoln and Bellamy, like Octavia, were naked. 

Lexa had her shirt off, and was watching, mouth open, eyes wide.

“Lube, gentlemen,” Griffin said. She set the cup on the edge of the bed.

“Is that shit toxic?” Belllamy asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s refined.”

“There’s the same stuff at Hog Island,” Lexa said.

Bellamy got a cushion from the pile and knelt on it, and took the cup. He gingerly dipped his fingers in. Then he spread the oil from his fingers onto his half-hard cock.

Griffin bit her lip.

Bellamy coated his fingers again, and then slid them into Lincoln’s crack. Lincoln moaned. He nuzzled Octavia’s inner thigh.

Octavia whined.

Lincoln laughed. “We’ve got all night.”

“Lexa,” Octavia commanded. “Come kiss me.”

Griffin narrowed her eyes. 

Lexa did as she was told, bending over the pallet and offering her mouth to Octavia, who seized it with her own, hard and plundering, hungry. In sync, Lincoln kissed Octavia’s clit again while Bellamy slid a finger inside him.

Griffin shucked the rest of her clothes. She should be friendless, she should be outcast, but here she was, surrounded by peers, on the verge of something important. Something lasting.

She went to the pallet and dipped her fingers in the cup and went behind Bellamy. 

“Ready?” She asked.

“Fuck you,” Bellamy said.

Octavia was rolling her hips and squeezing Lexa’s breasts in rhythm. “This is what you like? Women?”

Lexa nodded. She’d drawn back, but was still looking into Octavia’s face.

“I don’t get it.”

Lincoln scooted up Octavia’s body and took her breast in his mouth.

Lexa straightened.

Bellamy gripped Lincoln’s hips and carefully pushed in. “God. It’s been too long.”

Lincoln moaned and switched breasts.

Griffin slid her arms under Bellamy’s and pinched his nipples.

Bellamy squeaked.

“He pretends not to like it, but he does,” Griffin said.

Lexa, nude, pulled a straight-backed chair over to the pallet-bed and sat down. 

“The conqueror is on her throne,” Bellamy said.

Lexa gave him a shy smile.

Griffin yanked a pillow away from underneath Octavia’s head.

“Hey!” Octavia said.

Griffin knelt on it, before Lexa. "I will shield your back and keep your counsel and give my life for yours, if need be. I swear by the First Commander.”

“And I vow, that you shall always have a place by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table, and a pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear by the First Commander.”

Lexa slid down until her knees were on the same pillow as Griffin’s. She palmed Griffin’s chin with one hand, and slid the other between Griffin’s legs. 

Griffin mimicked the behavior.

Bellamy moaned. He was jerking his hips against Lincoln, fast and unsteady, while Lincoln, by contrast, moved with precise calculations, bringing Octavia to a screaming orgasm which crested with kneeing Lincoln in the face.

Bellamy finished soon after. He dug his nails into Lincoln’s back and grunted.

Lincoln remained hard, and he squirmed away from them both and stood, smirking.

“It’s been so long,” Bellamy said, panting.

Octavia purred. She drank in the sight of Lincoln, whose eyes were only for Lexa and Griffin, who pleasured only each other.

Bellamy strutted to the table for a glass of water. He drank heartily and refilled it and brought it back to Octavia.

Griffin came, clutching Lexa close to her and groaning, red-faced, urgent. 

Bellamy exhaled. 

Griffin buried herself in Lexa’s chest, while Lexa gazed at Lincoln’s thick, bobbing cock.

Lexa stroked Griffin’s hair. “Fealty, Griffin.”

Griffin swallowed hard, and then rose to her feet. She looked over Bellamy, his still, quiet, smiling expression, his limp dick, his too-skinny legs. 

Octavia set the water aside and rose from the bed. “Lexa.”

Bellamy nodded. “Lexa.”

Griffin led her to the pallet and settled down with her, teasing her lips along Lexa’s ear, brushing hair away from her forehead.

Lincoln dipped his fingers in the lube. “You are no stranger to me, heda.”

Lexa shook her head.

“I have read a thousand of your words. I have fought a hundred times for you in battle.”

He spread the lubricant along her, dipping his fingers gently in, then circling her clit, then stroking her legs.

“I am the Strongman. I am your servant.” 

“Then serve me,” Lexa said.

Her hand grasped Griffin’s. She winced when Lincoln entered her. He went slowly, letting her stretch. Leting her mold herself around him.

Octavia stood with her brother, her arms around his waist, watching.

Lexa opened her eyes again, met Lincoln’s gaze, and smiled encouragingly.

He began to slide in and out.

Griffin reached between Lexa’s legs. She stroked, even and steady with Lincoln’s thrusts.

Lexa bit her lip. She covered Griffin’s hand with her own, guiding. 

Octavia leaned against Bellamy’s chest. “I was pretty sure I’d never see you again.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Yet here we are, pretending we’re just kids having fun.”

“Just for tonight,” Bellamy said.

Lexa squeezed her eyes shut. Lincoln moved slowly, carefully, sweat pouring off his back. He smiled at Griffin and then leaned into kiss her, as they worked together over Lexa. 

“I’m going to--don’t stop--” Lexa said, breathing hard. She shuddered twice. Then swatted Griffin’s hand away.

With infinite patience, Lincoln moved inside her. Then frowned. “I shouldn’t wait too long or--”

“Release inside me,” Lexa said. “Let whatever may happen happen.”

Octavia growled and licked her lips.

Bellamy’s hand was on his cock, which was valiantly trying to rally again.

Lincoln groaned and stilled inside Lexa.

Griffin bit her lip. She met Bellamy’s gaze. “For old time’s sake?”

He nodded.

She guided him to the makeshift throne and pushed him down. Then she straddled him. 

Lincoln had rolled to Lexa’s side. His eyes were closed and he was smiling.

Octavia hopped onto the bed on Lexa’s other side. “They’re putting on a show.”

“They always have to be the center of attention,” Lincoln said.

“Just showing you how it’s done,” Griffin said.

Bellamy had to guide himself, not quite hard enough yet, into Griffin, who purred encouragingly and rolled her hips in his lap. They smiled at each other. Then burst out laughing.

“No offense, I don’t think I can come like this,” Bellamy said.

“I’m hurt,” Griffin said. “Do you want to fuck my girlfriend?”

Bellamy laughed again, then cupped Griffin’s face with his free hand and kissed her. Then he nuzzled her cheek. “Feels good, though.”

Griffin hugged his shoulders. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Octavia reached between Lexa’s legs.

Lexa swatted her away.

Octavia snorted. “It’s like masturbation except I don’t get any benefit from it.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong,” Lexa said.

“Clearly.”

Lincoln sat up. “We can eat more rabbit when you two are done.”

“We’re done.” Griffin hopped to her feet.

Bellamy groaned and squeezed himself. “Cruel, Griff.”

Lincoln glanced at Octavia. “Flip a coin?”

“Oh, let him suffer,” Octavia said.

They laughed, and everyone got half-dressed, and Octavia and Lincoln went to relieve John and Raven from watch.

***

John sat on the roof of the Iron Mountain, machine gun slung across his lap. He looked out into the blackness. No lights. No moon. Just stars, far away. Cold. 

“What have I gotten myself into?” He asked. 

“Hell if I know,” Raven said. “I’m just the mechanic.”

He nodded. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”

“Exactly what you’re imagining.”

“No.”

“Oh, yes. Just hope they don’t get into an argument. That’ll be a shitty ride back.”

“Can’t be as shitty as Rikers.”

“True.” Raven squinted through the dark. “Want to talk about it?”

“No way. Want to talk about why you’re up here and not down there?”

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough.”

John wound up the flashlight and shone it across the dockyard. He caught a possum in the beam, and his stomach growled, but no other thing moved.

He set it down on the ledge and pulled out a deck of cards. “Some Gin Rummy?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
